Connor In Sunnydale
by JPC
Summary: After Angel gets back on dry land, Connor flees LA, looks for a quiet place where he can kill demons, and unwittingly finds his way to his father's old stomping ground. He lies about his origins, lives with Xander, trains with Spike, and fights with (and
1. Chapter One: New Kid In Town

Connor arrives in Sunnydale. He doesn't make a very good first impression. He finally manages to gain Buffy's and Dawn's trust by lying to them about his origins and his past. However, a vampire gang that knows who he really is tries to kidnap and sacrifice him.

As he gazed his eyes upon her, he could not believe that she was a mere human being. A human had never made him feel this way. Nothing had. His mouth went dry. His heart pounded. His legs felt paralyzed. There was a tingling sensation in his belly. That last one was definitely new. It was like a parasite crawling around his insides. Except he kind of liked it.

He could not let this fairest of maidens walk out of his life. He must talk to her. He must spend every waking minute around her. But first, he had to talk to her. Maybe he could save her life. He knew this was a good way to impress women. But there were no bad guys around. Too bad. But he must do something, and do it know. If he did not, he might never see her again. And then he didn't know if he could go on living. But of course this was ridiculous. Sixty seconds ago he did not know she existed. And now she was the center of his existence? He knew it was irrational, but this made him believe it even more.

Convinced it was now or never, Connor mustered the courage to present himself to the fair maiden. Alas, he was no good with small talk. It just wasn't an important skill in a hell dimension.

"So, uh, do you, uh, come out here to hunt? See I, uh, come out here to hunt, uh, all the time, see. It's quiet at night, uh, you know, and easy to hear the animals."

Dawn looked at this boy as if he was from another planet, or at least from a mental hospital.

Connor saw he wasn't making any headway. So he tried to impress her. He took off his necklace and showed it to Dawn.

"These are, uh, from things I killed. Uh, I can kill a lot of things."

Now Dawn was genuinely frightened. The boy wasn't just mental. He was violent. She ran away. Connor wanted to beg her not to leave, but the syllables could not force their way out of his throat.

But he would not give up. Life on quor-toth did not teach Connor how to pick up women or make a good first impression. But it did teach him how to track things. He shadowed her home. He stayed up all night sitting in a tree a block away. In the morning he followed her to school, and lurked around the grounds.

Connor did not just want to learn about his fair maiden. He wanted to see what other people who looked his age did, and how they sounded. From a distance he could hear the conversations in the courtyard. Their activities, their hopes, their expectations were so different from his own.

Before Connor met Dawn, he had no real expectations, except to stay alive. When Angel came back he knew he was in danger. Connor could hide from the Wolfram & Hart goons always trying to grab him. They were loud and numerous, announcing their presence so far in advance Connor always had time to get away. But Angel understood stealth. If he wanted to find Connor in that city, he would. So Connor had to get away.

First he traveled east, in the direction of San Benardino. He found himself in a large, quiet forest. No cars whizzing by, no crowds of people making him nervous. This was more like it. But then Connor saw a sign: he was in Angeles National Forest. The name alone made him nervous. So he turned right and headed south.

When he was tired he slept in the hills. When he was hungry he could always find a metal box with food in it. In some places there were even buildings full of food which you could grab without any effort at all. At some point south of Yorba Linda he started finding vampires. He killed some and tracked others. They all seemed to head to this one town. And it wasn't just vampires. There were a few creatures Connor had never seen before. With so many animals to hunt, Sunnydale almost felt like home to Connor.

But now killing could bring Connor no joy. All he could think of was his fair maiden. The next night he saw her again, near the graveyard. She was waiting, looking, listening for what else could be in her vicinity. Connor thought yes, she must be hunting too. There was no other explanation. He tried to approach Dawn. But she heard him and turned in his direction. Connor panicked, and fled. He sped away and leaped over a ten foot wall in a single bound.

This time Dawn had got a better look at the new boy. She realized he wasn't that bad looking. But as she watched him leap into the distance, she realized he was a vampire. All the cute guys she met were vampires.

For months now Dawn had been Buffy's de facto apprentice. Buffy wanted to show Dawn the world. But most of the world Buffy knew revolved around staking the undead. Still, it allowed the two to bond. And it kept Dawn busy and out of trouble. As she improved, Buffy let her work on her own. Dawn would take an area 100 or 200 yards from Buffy. It allowed them to watch more open graves, prevent more vampire risings. And if Dawn was in danger, Buffy could hear her and quickly come to her aid.

The rest of that night and throughout the following day Connor asked himself why he ran away. He knew it was stupid. He knew he was blowing his big chance. It was just an instinct. You don't let what you're tracking know it is being tracked. When it spots you, you hide.

The next night Connor returned to where he had spotted Dawn the previous two evenings. No more lurking, no more shyness. He would go straight up to her and they would talk. There would be no more misunderstandings. She would understand what she meant to him, and he would win her heart.

So Connor made his move. Dawn was standing near Buffy on this occasion. Dawn spotted Connor. "Buffy!," Dawn screamed. "That's the vampire who's been after me!"

Buffy ran to Connor. He knew only one way to respond to threats. He charged, then when he was within about 15 feet he leaped in the air to kick Buffy. As he flew towards her, Buffy jumped straight up, avoiding his kick. She did a forward flip. When the two landed they turned and faced one another.

Buffy launched a roundhouse kick, which Connor blocked. She tried a forward kick, which he also blocked. Connor tried a right cross, then a left hook. Buffy blocked both. When he threw his left hook, she grabbed his fist, twisted his arm behind his back, and threw him to the ground. Connor rose. Buffy tried to kick Connor in the face. He ducked, then landed a crushing left jab which sent Buffy ten feet backward.

He approached quickly, and as she sprung to her feet she kicked Connor in the chest. Connor was confused. She looked like a woman, but fought better than a demon. Buffy landed several blows to Connor's face. She pulled out her stake. Connor's eyes bulged from his head. He grabbed the stake from her hand, and crushed the piece of wood in his fist. He landed several punches and kicks of his own. Buffy tried to kick him, but he grabbed her right foot in midair. She did a backflip, kicking Connor with her left foot and landing on her feet.

Connor leaped at her from twelve feet away. She grabbed him and threw him down. She pulled out another stake. Connor, still on the ground, grabbed her neck between his legs. Buffy struggled but could not break free. He flipped her down to the ground, and stood up. While she was down he kicked her in the ribs. She swept her legs into the backs of his and knocked him to the ground.

Both Buffy and Connor got up, and eyed each other warily. They circled one another, but instead of closing moved further apart. Soon they were circling each other thirty feet apart. Suddenly both took the offensive and charged one another, as if they were rams or elk. Both leaped in the air to attempt flying kicks. Their feet collided, sending both of them flying backwards and to the ground.

They landed in considerable pain. Slowly they rose. Buffy looked at Connor. She realized that at no time in their fight did he ever get bumpy and fangy. She stared at this boy and was puzzled. He stared at her with equal bewilderment. "What are you!?," Buffy yelled at Connor.

The nerve of this woman!, Connor thought. She attacked him. She tried to stake him, for heavens sakes! And he's the freak of nature in this situation? Still, she had tried to murder him. So Connor did not feel like staying around to answer questions from this homicidal maniac. He ran off into the distance. Buffy was sore, and she and her sister were very confused. They headed home for the night.

Connor had sprinted about 100 yards when something grabbed his right arm. He turned in fear to see what was holding him. It was a pale man in a long dark jacket.

The man spoke. "I fancy you want to know who that wonder woman was who nearly cut your heart out. And I'm bloody well sure you're dying to know what she was doing with that pretty little girl you were making great googly eyes at."

Spike had the boy's attention. Connor relaxed his muscles and calmed down. Spike let go of his arm.

"Who are you?," Connor asked.

"The name's Spike. I take it you're new to these parts. Welcome to Sunnydale. By now you know this place ain't like other towns. So what's your name, whipper snapper."

"Steven."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Steven. You look a little young to me out on your own. How old are you?"

Connor wasn't sure. Holtz said the seasons on quor-toth weren't like earth, so it was hard keeping track of time. Connor had heard others say he was 16, so he went with that. "Sixteen," he responded.

"You fight well for a young un," Spike told Connor. "Better than well, actually. You're bloody amazing."

"Thanks," Connor responded to the compliment. "That girl back there. She was also amazing."

"Ah yes, miss Summers," Spike began. "That's Buffy. As fighters go, she's at the top of the pyramid. She's a Vampire Slayer, God-given powers to fight the demons and all. I take it she thought you were a vampire. Can't blame her, now that I've seen your moves. But I see you gasping for air. You're spectacular, but best as I can tell you're human."

The Vampire Slayer thing intrigued Connor. "So she goes out at night and stakes vampires? I knew a woman like that in LA. She was tough, but not like that. Not like that Buffy."

"Yeah, Buffy's special, one-of-a-kind you might say. Now the girl, the one it's so bleeding obvious you're smitten with, she's Buffy's younger sister. Special bird. Guess you could say she's also one-of-a-kind."

"Is she also a Slayer?," Connor asked.

"No. But she's powerful. Not like Buffy, but for a girl whose not a Slayer, she's bloody well good."

"So that's why she's out here?," Connor asked. "She's hunting with her sister."

Spike laughed. "Hadn't heard it called that before." He adopted a mock southern accent. "Us fancy city folk refer to these kinds of things as slayin'. Huntin's when yo' out shootin' varmints in the briar patch." Then Spike returned to his normal voice. "Sorry about that lad. Don't mean to mock. But you've got this whole Nature Boy this going, like you're Davey Crockett or something. Where are you from anyway?"

It quickly occurred to Connor that he had not prepared himself for contact with strangers. He hadn't even made up a plausible story to explain who he was and where he came from. He turned and ran away. Spike at first was surprised. But then it made sense. He could understand why someone would not want to tell their life story to a stranger.

Connor slept under the pines in the forest as he had done on other nights. But by morning he was determined to finally get Dawn to talk to him. He followed her home from school. When she went inside he opened the door and entered. No one had ever taught him to knock.

Dawn turned, saw Connor, and was frightened. Buffy was at work, and she was all alone with this violent and strange boy. She faced Connor and backpedaled halfway up the stairs. He entered uninvited, and in the daytime. So he wasn't a vampire. But he hadn't proven to be very friendly either.

Connor saw Dawn's fear. "Please, don't be afraid. I am not here to hurt you." Then Connor launched into his prepared story, one that he thought she might relate to. "My name is Steven. I'm 16 years old. I grew up on a ranch in Utah with Holtz, my father. My mother died giving birth to me. Not long ago, my father was killed by vampires. I was all alone. So I left home to hunt down the vampires that killed my father. After I did that I kept hunting vampires. That led me here, to Sunnydale."

The story did the trick. Suddenly this weird boy made sense to Dawn. She realized they had a lot in common. They were both orphans. And she knew how hard it was to find a cute boy her age who also slayed. She walked down the stairs towards Connor.

"My name's Dawn. Sorry about telling my sister you were a vampire and almost getting you killed." Then she relaxed and began to ramble. "That's just so like me! I finally meet a cute boy who's cool with my afterschool hobby and I almost get him killed."

Connor processed this information and smiled. She said he was cute! That was a compliment. His fair maiden had given him a compliment! At last, she might actually like him. Suddenly his life seemed full of possibilities.

"U-Uh, thank you, uh, I guess," Connor stammered. "I, uh, myself, uh, think you are absolutely luminous." It wasn't the smoothest of deliveries, but Connor knew it could have been worse.

Dawn smiled politely at the compliment. But the choice of words intrigued her. Not pretty. Not beautiful. Not stunning. Luminous. Interesting word. Like the sun. Like an orb of energy which gives off light. Interesting word indeed.

"So, Steven. You want to stay for a little while, watch tv?"

Connor was not familiar with this word. "What is tv?"

"Wow, I guess you really did grow up in the middle of nowhere. To think there's a kid my age in this world who hasn't even heard of tv. Here, sit down Steven. Let me show you."

While the two of them got to know one another Spike took a break from work, after assuring Anya he was fully aware that she would dock him for the missed hours, and went meet Willow in the library lounge. She was writing a paper on Zelda Fitzgerald. Spike had some primary source material to contribute.

"No!," Willow said to Spike. "You're pulling my leg. You're yanking my chain. Your are Pulling and yanking the chain around my leg. No way you knew them!"

"I'm not lying to you," Spike responded. "It's bloody well true. When we were in Paris, in the 1920's, Dru and I hung out with Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald."

"But they weren't vampires. Don't vampires kill people and drink their blood rather than go to cocktail parties and socialize with them?"

"Most vampires don't socialize with any people at all. But they're barbarians. A higher breed of vampire, like, say, meself, could form relationships with people that didn't involve drinking their blood. I've known lots of interesting people I never even thought of killing."

"Wait a second. You tried to kill me! What, I wasn't interesting enough for you? I was just a meal on legs with a head attached."

Spike then tried to be charming. "Willow, you must remember that when I tried to kill you I barely knew you. We had never even had a genuine conversation. I there's one thing I'll thank those Initiative bastards for, it's that they kept me from making a horrible mistake and turning you into a vampire."

Willow perked up when she heard this. "So you weren't just going to kill me. You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?"

"No, I mean it, I really do. I was sick of Harmony and you seemed like a far more interesting girl. Wonder how you would have been as a vampire."

"Actually Spike, I know the answer to that. When you were gone, an alternate dimension vampire version of me got sucked into this world. She was this languorous, "bored now," dominatrix in a leather body suit. And she hit on me and groped me, which was really just totally disgusting. In so many ways. And on so many levels. But we sent her back before she did too much harm."

"Leather dominatrix. You don't say. Sounds like a great dimension."

"Spike, come on, enough."

"Okay then, back to business. Dru and I met Scotty and Zelda at their New Year's Eve party. Quite a party. It lasted until April. Zelda was a little mad, so of course her and Dru had a smashing time together. It was like they spoke their own language. Zelda was something of a painter. Did Dru's portrait. Some Fitzgerald fanatic bought it a little while back for a hundred thousand quid. Of course they have no idea who it is. It's called something like French Country Girl.'

"Me and Dru, we never really cared for Scotty's books, but they were great people. Never figured out what we were. They partied all night, slept it off in the daytime, so the whole nocturnal thing was nothing special.

"Scotty was real interested in me. He always said the rich were different from you and me. And he thought the English rich were even more different than the American rich. He always asked about the boarding schools, the balls, the garden parties, that sort of thing. He thought I was some rich kid slumming as a bohemian. Which in a way a kind of was. Basically he was a nice guy who got everything he wanted then realized that wasn't enough. You know, the tragedy of success."

Willow sat in rapt attention at this little trip back in time. "So, what was your impression of her? What was Zelda like?"

"You want a picture of Zelda? Okay. Think of Dru. With a southern accent. And not homicidal. That's Zelda. She was brilliant in her own way, but had trouble getting others to see it. Eventually she just gave up and went completely bonkers. Real sad story.

"I felt for Scotty. I mean, I've been there myself. You love some girl more than anything in the entire world. But she's sick, and you do everything you can to help her. Then one day you realize you've lost her forever."

"Gosh, that's so sad. But Dru? She was like Dru? Cause from what I've seen of Dru I'm having a problem with this visualization."

"Remember Willow, without the homicides. Try if you can to picture Drusila as a person with a soul. She's crazy, but she's not evil. She's just lost."

"Okay I'll give that idea time. I'm just having awful visions of Scott and Zelda killing Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein and sucking their blood. Say, did you know any of the other writers in Paris at the time?"

"Yeah, we ran into a few others. Don't like to name drop. Hold it. What am I saying? I love to name drop! So Gertrude Stein, or Gertie as we called her behind her back, had this thing for Dru. Dru of course thought she was disgusting and vile. So disgusting she didn't even want to kill her. But she wanted to hurt her, and was going to turn Alice B. Toklas into a vampire. I talked her out of it. Convinced her it would have created too much of a scene and we'd have to leave town. And Dru just adored Paris.

"And that thing you said about Scott and Zelda drinking Hemingway's blood – they would have loved it! Scotty and Ernest hated each other with a passion. Oil and water they were. Put about ten drinks in Ernest and he turned into Angelus, except without Angelus's artistic genius, of course. There was even this one night when, like always, he was trying to prove how macho he was, and started telling these ridiculous stories about how he staked vampires in Grenoble. It was just hilarious! Part of me wanted to put on the vampire face and scare the bloody daylights out of the bloke."

A little before six Buffy arrived home from work. She turned to find her sister hanging out with the creature she almost killed the night before. Dawn stood up and quickly explained.

"Oh, Buffy, this is Steven. He's a person. From Utah. His father was killed by vampires. So he's got no parents and goes around killing vampires."

"Well Steven, if you're looking for vampires you came to the right place," Buffy responded. "And, oh yeah, sorry for almost killing you. I'm always making bad first impressions."

"I guess I have the same problem," Connor wryly responded. "Buffy, you are a great fighter. The best I have ever faced."

"You know, I so rarely get to hear that. Cause just about everything I fight ends up dead. So thank you, Steven. It's nice to be appreciated. And you have a few good moves yourself. That whole flying through the air thing. How'd you learn to do that?"

Connor felt Buffy was getting too close to his secret. "My father, he taught me. As a young man he also fought vampires."

Buffy liked the sound of this. "I tell ya, it's so rare in this day and age to find good paternal role models. Your father sounds like a wonderful man. I'm sorry I never met him. There were a lot of times I could have used some help with the vampires around here."

"So how long have you been fighting them?," Connor asked Buffy.

"Wow. It seems like forever. Seven or eight years, I guess. I'm the Slayer. Your father might have told you the story. In each generation there is one girl given the power to fight the forces of darkness' yadda yadda yadda."

Connor nodded as if he knew what she was talking about. Holtz had always told him he was a special one sent by God to battle evil, and he didn't feel like getting into a discussion on this topic.

The three of them had dinner. Shortly after they sat down Willow came home and joined them.

"So tell me. Who's the new fella?"

"Hello there. I'm Steven," Connor responded.

"Well hello yourself. I'm Willow. Always nice to see a new face around here. Especially a face like yours."

Dawn then kicked Willow in the shins from across the table, as if protecting her property. Then Dawn said "Steven also hunts vampires. Actually, when we first met I thought he was a vampire and Buffy almost staked him."

Buffy jumped in to finish the story. "And then he kicked my ass."

"Well, you must be very good then, Steven. Buffy being a superhero and all." Then Willow got nervous, fearing she spilled a secret. "Ah, ah, what I mean to say is she's, well, ah."

Buffy ended Willow's stammering. "No recovery necessary, Will. He already knows."

Willow relaxed. "So then, Steven, you hunt vampires? And you can fight Buffy without dying or going to the hospital? What are you then, some Boy Slayer? Buffy, is there such a thing?"

Connor looked confused. Buffy told Willow "not that I've heard. Giles always made it sound like it was an all-girls club. Steven's father taught him how to fight vampires."

"Oh. So you're just a normal guy with no special powers. Like me, expect I'm a girl. Good old normal Willow, with no special powers. I don't float through the air or move objects with my mind or any of that stuff. Nope. Not me."

Connor was a bit confused by Willow. She seemed more high strung than the other two. It was nearing dusk and Connor wanted to get going. He excused himself and left.

Willow was intrigued by the mystery man. "So Dawn, is Steven your new boyfriend?"

Dawn was a bit irritated by the condescending prodding. "No. I mean, I just met him. I mean, we didn't really discuss that. We're just friends, er, I don't know! I mean, it's not like there's a term for this kind of thing."

"Oh but Dawn, he's perrrfect," Willow replied. "He's nice. He's polite. He hunts vampires. Oh, and yeah, he's absolutely adorable. I mean, it's so obvious. The way those bangs droop down to those sad, brown, puppy dog eyes, just begging for someone to take him in and care for him."

"Okay Willow, I admit it. He's a honey. You might say a major honey. But you sound just a little too interested in Steven."

"Oh Dawn, don't you worry. I mean, he's like way younger than me. And he's, you know, a guy. I won't touch your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend!," Dawn yelled back.

"But you wish he was," Willow answered slyly. "And he's already met your family. And he ate dinner at your house. That's, like, going steady."

Dawn thought about this. "Well, he did follow me home and barge in and try to talk to me, so it's obvious he likes me. If he wasn't so cute, I guess you'd call him a stalker. But instead you call him my boyfriend. Teenage boys are funny that way."

Connor walked into the center of town. He passed the Magic Shop and saw Spike inside. He entered. "Hi Spike," he announced.

"Oh it's you. Hello Steven. How ya been?"

"Pretty good, I guess. I hung out with Dawn this afternoon. She no longer runs away when she sees me. I like that."

At this point Anya entered from the storeroom. Spike had told her about Steven. She was glad to finally set eyes on the new boy.

"Well, if it isn't little Steven! I've heard so much about you. Spike told me you were quite the fighter. Though he didn't tell me you were this cute." She then swept his bangs off his forehead as if he were a little child. "You're such a pretty picture, now aren't you?"

Connor smiled. He wasn't used to doting female attention, and rather enjoyed it. "Oh yes you are!," Anya said in reply to her own question. Then she pinched his right cheek.

"That's enough, Auntie Anya," Spike said from across the room. "He's 16. He fights toe-to-toe with Slayers. He's hardly a child."

Anya realized perhaps she had gone overboard. She smiled at Connor, turned, and walked back to the cash register. Connor noticed the sun had just set. "I'm going to check around for vampires, get then before they have a chance to get anybody else. If I find any packs I'll tell you. It was nice to meet you Anya. Bye Spike."

Connor conducted a perimeter search around the town's center. He spread out to cover more ground in a spiral pattern, as Holtz had taught him. About half an hour into his search, Connor heard several voices in an alley behind a warehouse. Across from the warehouse was a one-story North Face store. He climbed a street lamp and jumped onto the store's roof, about 20 feet from the ground.

He approached the conversation. He saw six men, all clearly vampires. The warehouse's roof provided shade from the final rays of dusk. They were planning and discussing strategy, which Connor believed was rare for vampires. One of the vampires was clearly in charge, giving orders, making sure the other five knew what to do. They were going to break into something. Then the head vampire said "Magic Shop."

Connor realized Spike and Anya were in immediate danger. He leaped from the roof. Kicking one vampire to the ground and staking him. The other five fled and eluded Connor. He raced back to the store.

Anya was especially upset. Not because vampires were threatening her life, but because they were threatening her property. "This is just the worst thing that could possibly happen to me! I just finished cleaning this place up from the last, uh, unpleasantness, and now these vandals."

"Vampires," Connor corrected her.

"Yes, whatever," Anya responded. "But they're vandals, which is even worse. I've learned to handle the undead element in this community. I mean, they just want your blood. And they keep the rent on this place down, what with their propensity to kill this store's proprietors. But wanton destruction of private property. That is were I must draw the line!"

Spike rolled his eyes, and then began preparing defenses. There was the front and rear doors, and the front windows, which were barred. Both doors were then reinforced with plywood and furniture. Anya, desperate to protect the merchandise, took the front door. Spike watched the back. He told Connor to help whomever was in the most trouble.

The head vampire sent his four minions to storm the front. This would divert the people inside while he entered from the back. The vampires out front ripped a metal trash can from the street to use as a battering ram on the door. When the first vampire stuck him head through the plywood, Anya severed it with a large ax. The three behind him broke down the barriers. One of the knocked Anya down with the trash can. The other two burst through the breach.

Connor raced to them. One went left, one right. Connor leaped in the air and executed a textbook split kick, knocking both off their feet. He grabbed the one closest to the counter, and tossed him into the vampire near the wall.

The vampire with the trash can tried to bash it over Connor's skull. Connor reached up and grabbed it, then kicked this vampire in the stomach, then in the face. He flinched backwards, and let go of the trash can, which Connor now held. In a sweeping underarm motion, Connor hit the vampire with the trash can and knocked him to the ground. Connor then raised the large metal can over his head and brought it down on this vampire's head, crushing it completely.

Connor dropped the slaying receptacle and approached the two remaining minions, who had risen to their feet. Connor punched one of them. But the other ripped a shelf off a bookcase and beat Connor upside the head with the board.

Spike had heard nothing outside the back door. He checked on the front, and saw Anya on the ground and Connor taking a beating. He raced to Connor's aid. Spike grabbed this vampire from behind, forcing him to drop the board. Anya rose up now, saw this vampire being restrained by Spike, and staked it.

Connor got up and took a punch from the one remaining minion. He punched back and knocked down the vampire. He got on his knees over top this vampire, and gave it a good licking. He was very mad about the beating. Then he staked it.

The head vampire, whose name was Demetrius, had been waiting for Spike to leave his post, listening to his breathing. When he heard Spike walk away, he jimmied the lock with a crowbar and entered. He came into the front part of the store and grabbed a leather-bound volume. Connor heard him and told Spike and Anya there was one more behind them.

Spike and Anya ran at Demetrius. Anya reached him first. She was eager to protect the merchandise. Demetrius swung the crowbar at her like a baseball bat. The impact sent her flying through the glass display case near the register.

Spike grabbed the crowbar with his right hand and punch Demetrius in the nose with his left. Demetrius held onto the crowbar with his left hand and grabbed Spike's throat with his right, lifting Spike's feet off the ground.

Connor raced to save Spike. Demetrius heard the boy approach and tossed Spike onto Connor, knocking both of them down in a heap. Connor leaped to his feet and attacked rashly. Demetrius hit him over the head with his crowbar. Spike struggled to reach his feet. Demetrius brained him three times with the crowbar, knocking Spike unconscious.

Demetrius then dropped the crowbar and reached for a bottle and a handkerchief in his pocket. He poured liquid from the bottle onto the handkerchief. Connor tried to punch Demetrius, but he ducked and maneuvered behind Connor. He grabbed Connor from behind, placed the chloroform-drenched handkerchief over Connor's mouth, and Connor collapsed. Demetrius picked up Connor and the book and exited. Before leaving he dropped a bookcase on Spike as an extra indignity for the ex-vampire.

Anya had called Buffy when Connor alerted her to the danger. This upset Spike, who wanted the three of them to handle the matter on their own. Calling the Slayer every time danger appeared made Spike feel helpless. Buffy, Willow and Dawn arrived after Demetrius left. They couldn't see Spike because of the bookcase on top of him. But they saw Anya lying in the display case and revived her.

Anya told them they killed all but one vampire, and he wanted a book. She checked the shelf the book was on. From the books around the missing volume she quickly realized what it was: Gaiseric's Book Of The Dead. She told Buffy it contained rituals for devil worshipping. Willow immediately thought of the temple she had exhumed. It was closer to Xander's house than to the Magic Shop, so she called him and told him to meet them there. Buffy, Dawn and Willow left without Anya, who said she had to look something up about the missing text.

When Connor awoke he was in the temple, his arms stretched perpendicular to his body, tied to very large crucifix. Demetrius stood below him, pacing back and forth and chanting in ancient Gothic. Connor struggled, but could not break free. Desperate, he screamed for help.

Dawn heard him outside and recognized his voice. She yelled "Steven!" and tried to rush in after him. Buffy grabbed her and said she would go first and fight this vampire. Dawn, Xander and Willow would follow and free Steven.

Demetrius had already raised the floor of the temple to ground-level. Buffy leaped through a window. Demetrius continued to chant. Behind him was a large altar. Buffy did a handspring off the alter and landed between Demetrius and Connor.

"The mass is done," Buffy announced to Demetrius as she kicked him in the face, causing him to stumble backward. "Let us now go forth to dust you and love and serve the world," she added as she landed blow after blow. Demetrius did not fight back. He just stayed on his feet, held onto his book, and continued to chant. The light brown wood of the crucifix turned black and a red light shone through the floor below Connor, illuminating him.

Xander, Dawn and Willow broke in through what had been the front door. They looked straight ahead, and saw Connor up in the air on the cross. "Steven!," Dawn yelled again, running towards him.

"Okay, two questions," Xander said to Willow. Okay, maybe three questions. Why is there a big cross in a satanic temple? Why is there a person on that cross? And pray tell me who is this Steven Dawn keeps screaming about?"

"Uh, he's the one on the cross," Willow answered as the two of them maneuvered around Buffy and Demetrius and made their way to Connor. "He's new in town. Just met him at dinner at Buffy's place. He hunts vampires, it think."

"Well it looks like the vampires also hunt him," Xander responded. "Either that, or worship him."

"Or crucify him," Willow added as they reached Connor's feet. Xander took out the ax he brought and cut the ropes tying Connor's feet to the cross. But Connor's were too high up for Xander to reach. He handed the ax to Dawn and told him to stand on his shoulders. After taking a few seconds to find his balance, Dawn took the ax to the ropes around Connor's right arm.

Her first swing was errant, missing the ropes and nearly severing Connor's forearm. Connor gasped and started breathing very heavily. He did not completely trust Dawn, standing on someone's shoulders, wielding an ax around his body parts. She tried to assuage his fears. "Oh, don't worry Steven, you'll be fine. I've does this, like, a dozen times. Vampires are always crucifying people around here. No big deal. Relax."

Connor flinched as she swung a second time. This one connected, severing the ropes above his wrist. As he freed his right arm, Connor grabbed the ax from Dawn. He still did not completely trust her with that thing. With his free right hand, he chopped the ropes holding his left arm, and dropped to the ground. It would have been quite a fall for any other man, but Connor landed effortlessly on his feet.

Buffy was through beating on Demetrius, and went to stake him. He offered no defense. Just before touching his skin, the stake hit what to Buffy felt like a wall. She tried again, with no success.

"Buffy you can't stake him!," Anya yelled from outside the window Buffy broke through. "It's like a sanctuary in there for him! Get away from him now!"

Anya's voice caused Demetrius to move his eyes up from the text. He saw that Connor was off the cross. But this did not worry him as much as one would have suspected. As long as he was inside the temple, the heathen humans could not leave it. Connor, Xander, Dawn and Willow soon realized this as they ran for the door. Demetrius laughed at their desperation. Then he grabbed Buffy and threw her into the stone alter, splitting it in two.

Anya had come across a few devil worshippers in her day, and she knew that while Demetrius could not be harmed inside the temple, he was not protected from attacks from the outside. She had armed herself with a bottle of hairspray and a scrunchy. She wrapped the scrunchy around the front of a bolt, and soaked it with hairspray. She placed the bolt in the crossbow, and aimed at Demetrius, who was muttering some incantation telling his God he had even more human offerings for him. Anya took out a lighter, ignited the scrunchy, and fired.

The bolt hit Demetrius behind his right shoulder. The flames spread quickly to his clothes. "Run to this window, run to me!," she yelled to the people inside. "When he's dead you climb out."

Demetrius staggered around the temple, trying to smother the flames on the building's walls. This only spread the flames to the walls. The temple was an old pine building coated with turpentine, so it went up pretty fast. When Demetrius was incinerated Buffy and friends climbed out and retreated from the flames.

The property damage was especially gratifying to Anya. "Yeah, see how you like it, satanic vampire vandal guy! How does it feel to have your property destroyed, you devil-worshipping brigand!"

The flames spread quickly to the steeple. As it was being consumed the steeple buckled and fell through the roof of the temple. Soon the walls caved in.

Xander, as always, resorted to jokes to blunt the trauma. "So, Steven, just so you don't have a bad impression of our little town. Vampires – common everyday occurrence. Crucifixions – almost never happen." Xander then looked at Connor's hands. "Hey, look on the bright side, Steven. It could have been worse. At least he didn't drive nails through your hands."

Connor looked at Xander and laughed. He had never known a man with a sense of humor. Holtz and Angel, they were serious, dour men. He knew right away Xander was different. "You're right, you know that. Sure, I'd be a stigmatic, walk around showing everyone my wounds of Christ. But it would hurt. It would really, really hurt. I mean, the whole point was Jesus did that so we wouldn't have to."

"Yes, being the Messiah's a dirty job. Just be glad someone else has already done it," Xander joked back. Connor laughed again. "By the way, Steven, I'm Xander. I brought the ax that almost severed your limbs. I'm helpful that way."

"Hello Xander," Connor answered, still laughing. "You are very funny. I like that."

"Well how bout that," Xander said. "Usually my lame jokes are greeted with snide comments if I'm lucky, and slaps to the face if I'm unlucky. Always a pleasure to meet somewhat who appreciates my refined comedic gifts. Say, Steven, you're new in town . So where are you staying."

"Oh, about a mile that way, on that hill."

"What? There's no houses there."

"I sleep on the ground under the trees."

"Say, how bout you give up those fancy, five-star pine-scented accommodations and stay and my place? It's no Embassy Suites, but there are pillows, blankets, a bed that pulls out of a couch, running water, electricity and, here's the deal-closer, a roof! All that, and it's free."

Connor liked Xander, and his place sure sounded comfortable. The two of them left for Xander's apartment. Buffy, Dawn and Willow returned home. None of them thought to wonder why this vampire was crucifying Connor. Willow was sullen. She felt guilty. After all, she was the one who raised the temple.

Anya returned to the store. Spike had come to, and discovered he was all alone. He was frantic, running around yelling for Anya and Steven. He saw Anya enter and ran to her, begging to know what happened to Steven. She said relax, she had taken care of it. Steven was safe. Anya killed the vampire herself. She was very proud of this.

Spike was glad to hear of the happy ending. But as he slinked home he couldn't help but feel defeated. He had failed to protect himself. He had failed to protect others. He felt helpless, vulnerable, painfully human.

In the morning, Connor discovered Xander's copious supply of sugary foods. He ate a box of Cocoa Pebbles for breakfast. Before Xander went off to work, he put in his Star Wars DVD's to entertain Connor. Connor really liked them, but had trouble understanding that it was fiction and these characters and their world did not exist. Xander wasn't able to get this into his head.

A few hours after Xander left, Connor was lying on the couch, shoveling Cracker Jacks into his mouth, watching the end of "The Empire Strikes Back." The Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader duel really caught his fancy. But then Vader said he was Luke's father. Connor gasped, and choked on a mouthful of caramel popcorn. He fell to the floor and coughed violently. So much for what Xander said. These movies felt plenty real to Connor.


	2. Chapter Two: Holy Warriors

Buffy always liked to have help. But there was such a thing as too much help. Dawn tagging along and playing sidekick was nice. But after Connor joined the patrol three felt like a crowd. Too many slayers, too few vampires. When a vamp popped up Buffy and Connor would practically fight for the opportunity to dust it. With Dawn and now Connor on patrol, Buffy sometimes wondered if this town still needed a real Slayer.

To create some breathing room Connor started to roam about 100 yards from Buffy. That way if he came upon a vamp the kill was his, and if she found one it was hers. Less conflict that way. One night when Connor was off by himself, he heard something move and followed the sound. He came upon a single vampire, attired like none he had ever seen. The vampire wore a black turban, and had a mustache and goatee. It wore a black robe cut off just above the knees, with gray trousers underneath. This vampire had a picturesque, almost dashing appearance, like something out of a David Lean film. But Connor didn't think it would be any tougher than the other vampires.

Connor approached and kicked the vampire. It tried to punch him, but he eluded the blows and knocked the vampire several feet back. Connor approached for the kill. Then the vampire reached behind his shoulders and pulled out a large scimitar. The curved, single-edged sword was about 30 inches in length and flared out to a width of four inches near the tip. This was definitely something Connor had never seen before.

Two more black-turbaned, scimitar-wielding vampires appeared behind Connor. He was surrounded, outnumbered and grievously underarmed. As they took their first swings at him Connor leaped into the air, soaring above the blades and out of the trap. The three vampires turned and pursued. Connor dodged their steel. Buffy and Dawn had heard the fighting and raced to see what Connor had gotten himself into. When Buffy saw what he was facing she doubted whether she could save him.

But just when Connor looked done for, a man raced up behind the vampires. He had a close-cropped beard and was armed and dressed like the vampires, except with a red turban and brown slacks. With his scimitar this man beheaded one of the vampires. The other two turned to face him. The one nearest this man attacked. The warrior used his sword to block the vampire's. Out of his right sleeve appeared a stake, and he drove it home.

Now he faced the other vampire. The two warriors attacked and defended, the sounds of their clashing swords echoing through the night. Then another stake appeared, this one beneath the warrior's left sleeve. He attacked with the sword in his right hand. He took a swing at the vampire's head. When the vampire raised his sword to parry this blow, he left his chest unprotected. The warrior then plunged the stake from his left sleeve into the vampire's heart.

Connor was stunned. As were Buffy and Dawn, who during the fight stood beside Connor, as bewildered as he was. And then, behind this victorious warrior appeared nine other men with close-cropped beards, wearing black robes and red turbans.

"Permit me to introduce ourselves," the warrior who had saved Connor said to Buffy, Dawn and Connor. "We are the Sayful al-Salamiya."

"The stay-full salamis?," the still bewildered Buffy asked.

"Sorry, it's an Arabic phrase. It means the Swords of Salamiya." Salamiya was a Syrian city where the first Fatimid caliph was born, but this warrior could tell these people weren't interested in historical trivia. "My name is Ibrahim. I am the commander of the Swords of Salamiya." Ibrahim then bowed to Buffy and said "and you, dear lady, must be the Slayer."

"Nice to see you've done your homework. Name's Buffy."

"Buffy," Ibrahim replied as he batted this name around in his head. "Such a preposterous name for such a formidable fighter, don't you think?"

Buffy couldn't quite figure if this was a compliment or an insult. So she chose to be modest and evasive. "Well, you see, the name helps. Makes my opponents underestimate me."

"Well then Buffy, since you are the Slayer, why don't you fight alone? And where is your Watcher?"

Once again, Buffy had to explain her novel ways. "Probably the same reason you don't fight alone, Ibrahim. Fight alone, die alone. Fight together, live together. As for the Watcher, after five or six years on the job my Watcher felt he had nothing more to teach me. By the way, this is Dawn, my sister. Kind of the family business, you might say. And this is Steven. He's a sort of freelance vampire killer."

"You are being modest about Steven," Ibrahim replied. "To take on three Qahira al-Hakim completely unarmed and not suffer a scratch, you must be a truly gifted fighter, young man."

"Uh, thanks," Connor bashfully replied. "But you're the one who killed them. And what was that you called them?"

"Oh, of course. I should have explained before. Those three vampires were part of the Qahira al-Hakim, the guards of Hakim. In the early 11th century, Hakim ruled Egypt as the six Fatimid caliph. He was brilliant, but some said he was also a little mad. He preferred to work at night and sleep in the day. So he decreed that all government work and commercial transactions be conducted at night. But he quickly rescinded this decree when he observed the chaos it created. At age 37, Hakim disappeared. It was assumed he was murdered, but his body never was found.

"There were those who thought Hakim was the personification of God, that he ascended to Paradise, and that he would someday return to inaugurate an era of justice. They had it backwards. As I'm sure you figured out by now, Hakim had been bitten and turned into a vampire. His nocturnal habits convinced some vampires it might be a good idea to make him undead. He disappeared to the mountains to the south with the Qahira al-Hakim, his vampire army of 7,000. He planned to return to Egypt one day and establish a "Rule of the Night," a sort of demon kingdom on Earth.

"Near the end of the twelve century, the Fatimid Empire was on the verge of collapse. Hakim saw his chance and attacked. The Berber and Turkish mercenaries the Fatimids depended on had deserted to Salah ad-Din in Syria. The few loyal Egyptian soldiers who remained fought Hakim and defeated his army in a great moonlit battle near Aswan. Hakim fled with the 3,000 surviving Qahira.

"Salah ad-Din then conquered Egypt and absorbed the remaining Fatimid soldiers into his army. But 77 men vowed to pursue Qahira until they were no more. They formed the Sayful al-Salamiya. The original Sayful and their descendants have continued this sacred mission. To elude the Sayful, Hakim, who had become a powerful magician, descended into the Underworld. One thousands years to the night of his birth, the surviving Qahira will ascend Hakim back to Earth through the Hellmouth. That night is tomorrow."

Buffy was a bit blown away by the numbers. "Did you say 3,000? Us and the ten of you are supposed to defeat 3,000 vampires!"

Ibrahim sought to calm her. "We have been slaying them for 800 years. Only 32 made it into Sunnydale. The three you encountered were sent to test your mettle. That leaves 29. But 7 Qahira are needed underground to perform the ascension. That leaves 22 for us the fight. We kill them, and the Sayful descend underground to do away with the rest."

Buffy was relieved. "Whew. Ten of you, the three of us, plus three other friends of ours. Sixteen on 22. I've faced much worse odds. Piece of cake."

"You have more friends who slay with you?," Ibrahim inquired. "You have five companions of your own? A Slayer with her own army. Now I have seen it all!"

Buffy started to wonder why the other nine guys said nothing. "So what's the deal, Ibrahim? The rest of your men mute?"

"No, they just don't know English. We knew someday we would have to travel here to prevent the ascension. As the commander I took it upon myself to learn the local language. Well, me and Ahmed. Ahmed likes to watch Monty Python. He picked up a few words from them."

"We are not the knights who say neep, neep, neep," Ahmed said as an attempt at a joke. Buffy chuckled, Dawn laughed.

"So what's the plan Ibrahim?," Buffy enquired. "You guys just gonna wait for tomorrow night?"

"Pretty much," Ibrahim glibly answered. "The Qahira are far too crafty to allow themselves to be caught tonight or ambushed during the daytime. If you try anything clever they will chop you into little bits. Their ceremony begins at moonrise, which is an hour after the sun sets. The ascension would occur nine hours, thirty minutes later when the moon sets. This will give us plenty of time to kill the Qahira before the ascension can be completed. You and your fighters will meet me at this spot at sunset tomorrow. Until then, remember Allahu Akbar!' God is great, and with Allah we shall prevail."

Three miles distant but a world away Willow experienced a different form of cross-cultural shock. She went to the coffee shop for a little boost. As she stood in line, she could hear a singer. He was better than the usual folkies they give the mike to, Willow thought. She turned to see who this crooner was.

The singer was Spike. He was up there, with an acoustic guitar, singing the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes," and elegy to lost love:

"Thought of you as my mountaintop.

Thought of you as my peak.

Thought of you as everything,

I've had but couldn't keep."

This was not the first time Willow had experienced this sort of shock. She saw Giles in the same spot nearly three years ago. She thought Giles sounded good, as did Spike. But leather Spike looked less ridiculous up there than tweed Giles.

Willow got her frappacino and sat down. She looked over the other patrons. The room had separated, the way red blood cells and plasma do in a test tube. The women had been drawn to the stage. A few appeared to be gazing at Spike as if mesmerized:

"If I could make the world as pure,

and strange as what I see.

I'd put you in the mirror,

I put in front of me."

And then Willow thought of the words Spike was singing. Lost love. Regrets. Yearning for something better than yourself. Spike was singing about Buffy. In public. In front of strangers. Here was this man she was friends with publicly declaring his feelings for her best friend. It was the artistic equivalent of Warren broadcasting the feed from his hidden cameras.

Spike finished he last refrain of "linger on, your pale blue eyes" and was greeted with a smattering of applause and a few isolated screams of approval from some of the ladies. He then began Leonard Cohen's "Take This Longing." If he was going to bare his newly returned soul to these strangers, he was going to do it with good songs. Some men in attendance appreciated this. They hung back near the bar, so as to distance themselves from the panting women, but were still intently listening and appreciating Spike's refined taste in songwriting:

"Many men have loved the belt

you fastened to the ring.

And every one who wanted you -

they found what they will always want again.

Your beauty lost to you yourself.

Just as it was lost to them."

Many men? Wait a second! Was Spike bringing third parties into this public monologue? Willow knew what that line meant: that was Angel and Riley Spike was singing about. Maybe even Xander. Yuck! Granted, these songs were written before Buffy was born about people Willow never knew. But that only made the relevance of the songs all the more surreal.

Regardless, Willow had to admit to herself Spike was pulling off the whole troubadour thing pretty well. If she didn't know him she might be one of the women up front. Now that was a disturbing thought.

It wasn't everyday a sacred order of vampire slayers came into town, even if that town was Sunnydale. But Buffy had more than seen it all, and tried to keep a cool head about these new vampires and their attempt at ascension. When it came to ascensions, Buffy had been there and done that more than once or twice. She felt almost relieved to face a new challenge.

"I tell ya, it's been too quiet around here lately. And with you two helping out, patrolling's become about as exciting as gym class. So I'm kinda glad these new vamps showed up. And I've been waiting like forever for an excuse to break out the swords. Don't know about you guys, but I'm psyched!"

Dawn was a little unnerved by Buffy's boldness. "Actually, Buff, I kind of liked the quiet. It was nice to go whole weeks without screaming in mortal terror. I mean, after all we've been through, a little tranquility isn't such a bad thing."

At this point the three of them arrived at Buffy's house and entered. Willow was in her room typing her Fitzgerald paper, the one Spike helped her with. She heard them enter and came downstairs.

"So how was the patrol? Same old, same old, I bet."

"Well, they were old, but they certainly weren't the same as what we're used to," Dawn jokingly replied.

Buffy filled Willow in. "It's quite exciting! Way cool! A new adventure for the whole gang, like old times! There are these 1,000 year-old Egyptian vampires with black turbans and really cool swords that want to raise their leader from the Hellmouth tomorrow night. And there were these good guys, from some 800 year-old vampire slaying society. They also have really cool swords and red turbans, and will help us kill them."

"Well, I guess that qualifies as a fun night out with the friends if your friends are my friends, which means you guys," Willow responded. "I've been meaning to get my slaying groove thang back on, if you know what I mean."

Since meeting the Sayful warriors, Connor's head had been in a different place. Especially after what Ibrahim had said about Allah. Holtz had told him about men like that, with turbans and curved swords and beards and flowing robes. They were his enemies. They were the enemies of Christ. The infidels. The vile Saracen and the wretched Turk. Why did they save his life? How could they be on his side?

Connor jumped into the conversation. "Those warriors. They were Mohammedans."

This was an 18th century term, with which the people Connor was talking to were unfamiliar. His interjection caused a few seconds of confused silence. Then Willow put together the pieces.

"Oh, you mean they were Muslims. Wearing turbans, part of an 800 year-old warrior society from Egypt. Sure, they'd be Muslims."

Willow did not seem to understand a point Connor thought was obvious. "They are non-believers. How can they claim to fight evil if they don't believe in the Savior."

Buffy and her friends had never thought of vampire slaying along such narrow denominational lines. In fact, they didn't connect it with organized religion at all. Buffy tried to soft-peddle the issue. "Oh, this is about Jesus, right?," she casually asked Connor.

Connor was struck by their lack of piety. "But everything is about Jesus," he answered. Then he recited something Holtz taught him as a child. "Jesus washes away the sins of the world. He makes our salvation, our eternal life, possible."

Willow was a bit perturbed by all this Jesus talk. "Okay Steven. Let's pull back from the precipice of religious war for a minute to remember what matters here: we're human, they're vampires, we work together and kill them. Besides, I'm Jewish. So I guess by your logic I'm doomed to eternal damnation and hellfire. Is that what you're saying?"

Connor was not prepared to answer that question. One answer would have him condemn one of Dawn's friends to Hell, which would not help his chances with her. The other answer would essentially refute his whole point. So Connor generalized. "All of you fight without any idea what you are fighting for. This is why you never win, why you must fight again and again year after year and never be any safer. You beat back the flames of Hell without ever moving towards the Gates of Heaven." And with that Connor left.

"Well that was just plain rude," Willow said. "What a prick."

This upset Dawn. "Oh come on Willow, be fair."

Buffy was sympathetic to Willow. "Sorry Dawn. Gonna have to go with Willow on this one. Steven comes in here, insults Willow's heritage. Insults those guys who saved his life. Tells us it's our fault we live on the Hellmouth. Acts like he decides who goes to Heaven and who doesn't. And believe me, he hasn't a clue on that one!"

Dawn still defended Connor. "You guys should give Steven a chance. He hasn't seen very much of the world. We can't condemn him for believing what his father taught him. He doesn't know any better."

Buffy was especially provoked by Connor's Gates of Heaven remark, and part of her wanted to tell him how wrong she knew he was. But he left quickly, and besides, Buffy wasn't fully prepared to explain her entire backstory to the new boy.

Connor once again felt isolated and alone. He paid a visit to Spike. Spike struck him as erudite, and Connor figured perhaps Spike could understand his sentiments.

Connor mentioned the new vampires and vampire hunters in town. "Oh yes, the Qahira and the Sayful," he responded. Spike and Angelus had crossed paths with the Qahira in Marrakech. Angelus and Spike got a bit plastered and cultural misunderstandings led a to brawl in which the two of them nearly lost their lives. Suffice it to say they never traveled to the Magreb again. Of course Spike would not tell Connor this for obvious reasons. "Vampires, vampire killers. What's the big deal?"

"But the Sayful are non-believers. They don't accept Christ."

Connor had already told Spike he grew up isolated in Utah. Spike figured this was the root of this issue. "Your father, this Holtz, I take it he was a religious bloke and all. What was he, Mormon?"

Connor had never heard that word. Odd for someone who claimed to be from Utah. But he gathered from the context it was some religious sect. And he did know which sect Holtz belonged to. "No, Wesleyan" he replied to Spike.

"Ah, a Methodist. You said a few days ago I talk a bit like your father, so an English Methodist. I've known a few of those." Granted the ones Spike knew on a personal basis lived in the 19th century. But this helped, since Spike recognized that Connor's non-ecumenical outlook was decidedly old-fashioned.

Spike knew enough of the Bible to pretend like he knew more about it than he did and get away with it. He remembered that those who preached religious tolerance always mentioned Romans Chapter 2. So he decided to trot it out.

"Look Steven, from what I've heard your father was a great man. That he produced you is in itself a sign of this greatness. But you're young. Everything's black and white. I bet your father knew better. And I bet that if he was around he'd set you straight on this matter.

"Steven, remember Romans Chapter 2. In judging your fellow man you condemn yourself.' Also says that those who don't accept Jesus but who live a good life, who live by the light of nature,' will get into Heaven. No offense, but who are you to question the Apostle Paul?"

Connor recognized Spike had driven a rhetorical stake through the heart of his argument. But he was not ready to give up. "But Spike, what about the Cross? It wounds vampires. Because means they are enemies of Christ. And if the vampires are enemies of Christ, aren't we who kill them servants of Christ?"

But Spike knew more about vampires than Connor was aware of. "Sure, sure, vamps got a whole crucifixion fixation. The whole concept of God being hung out to rot like a side of beef. The divine blood sacrifice. Really gets their juices flowing. So, yeah, they are enemies of Christ. But they're also enemies of everything else human beings care about.

"Think about this, Steven. Slayers have been around for 100,000 years. 98,000 of those years were before Jesus was even born. So who were Slayers fighting on behalf of for those 980 centuries?

"Now Steven, I know there's a Heaven which rewards the virtuous and I know there's a Hell which punishes the wicked. You'll have to take it on faith when I tell you there is more than one single bloody little path to virtue. Evil is everywhere, so good is everywhere. Even in places where people don't believe in Jesus."

Spike succeeded in making Connor question all his assumptions. But this only made him more confused and depressed. He spent the night wandering the streets, trying to piece everything together. As dawn arrived, he heard a striking noise. It was the Sayful warriors calling themselves to morning prayer. Connor followed the noise to a large tent in the forest where he used to sleep. The Sayful were outside the tent kneeling on the earth, facing in the direction of the rising sun.

After they finished praying Connor approached Ibrahim to find out more about them. Ibrahim explained that after each warrior turned 30, he took as his wife a woman who was orphaned or widowed by vampires. Each warrior produced one son. The mothers trained their sons to be virtuous and strong. The women also preserved the legends and traditions of the Sayful. When a boy's father died, he took his father's place. A warrior who died without producing a son could not be replaced, which is why there were originally 77 warriors but where now only 10.

"So where are your children?," Connor asked Ibrahim.

"We knew we would be the last of the Sayful. So none of us have taken wives or had children. By this time tomorrow, 800 years of work will be completed."

This all seemed so familiar to Connor. Men chasing demons across the centuries. Fathers training their sons to fight the same vampires they fought. But unlike him these men had mothers.

"Do you remember your mother?," Connor asked Ibrahim.

"In our early years, when we were too young to go fighting with our fathers, we spent almost all our time with our mothers. They told us the sacred tales of the Sayful, taught us the Koran, the Hadith, helped us to understand our place in the world."

Connor liked listening to Ibrahim. He was kind of like Holtz, always talking about God and vampires. Except he seemed far more serene, possessing an inner peace Holtz decidedly lacked.

Connor had been wandering all night, and his stomach rumbled. He was going to go home to Xander's. Xander had a set of keys made for Connor so he could come and go as he pleased. Before leaving Connor asked Ibrahim if he wanted to have some breakfast with him. Ibrahim told Connor that the Sayful live only on dates, almonds and rainwater. But he thanked Connor for the offer of hospitality.

Connor headed home. Xander was getting ready for work.

"Late night slayin?," Xander asked.

"Yeah. There are these new vampires in town. With swords. And these other guys with swords arrived to help us fight them. I think we'll need everybody for this one."

"All right! The Scooby Gang is back in action!"

"The Scoo-what?," Connor asked.

"Oh, never mind, Steven. Just and old joke. I bought some more Cocoa Puffs for you. Have fun. See you tonight."

Connor then had his sugary chocolaty breakfast of champions, and turned on the television. He had gotten good at working all the different remotes. He flipped through the channels, didn't find anything especially to his liking, and put in Xander's tape of "Enter The Dragon." He was intrigued by some of Bruce Lee's moves, and wanted to copy a few of them himself. But he had been up all night, and in a few minutes he fell asleep.

Dawn had left for school, and Willow and Buffy were grabbing a bite in the kitchen. Willow had something she wanted to tell Buffy.

"So last night, while you guys were out patrolling, I went to get some coffee. And who do I see there, singing onstage? Spike!"

"So what, Spike's pulled a Giles?," Buffy asked.

"Oh no, not really. I mean, he sang good, like Giles. But it wasn't weird. He wasn't out of place up there. And the girls, I mean, the ladies were just going bonkers for him. I have to confess, if I didn't know who Spike was I might have wanted to, you know, well, have sex with him. But of course I know better. Uh, Uh, not that I mean you should have known better. Oh, wait, that's coming out all wrong. I mean"

"At ease Willow. I've come to terms with that part of my past. It's behind me. Spike means nothing to me. Not that I hate him. I'm just indifferent."

Willow had an idea. "So if you're indifferent you won't have a problem if I tell him about these new vampires and ask him to help us out."

"I don't have a problem with it," Buffy responded. "But I see no point in it. He has no power. He's Xander without the good intentions and moral support."

Willow thought Buffy was selling him short. "I know he's human and all. But I think over the years he learned a thing or two about how to handle a sword. We do need all the help we can get."

Buffy still was not convinced. "Yes, we need all the help we can get. But Spike's not help. He's a nuisance. He just gets in the way."

Willow then left for school. After classes she dropped by the Magic Shop, Buffy be damned.

Oddly, Anya was glad to see her. "Willow, great to see you. I've worked out a payment schedule so you can reimburse the store for all the damage you caused. I know you're a student and poor and not yet a productive member of society. But I think it's fair and generous. After all, I'm allowing you to pay me back without interest."

Same old Anya, thought Willow. She looked at a person and saw a producer and consumer of goods and services. "It is so nice to know you've been thinking about me, Anya. You're more than my friend. You're my bill collector. No, wait, those two roles are mutually incompatible."

Willow walked by Anya. "Does that mean you are or you aren't prepared to make your first payment?," Anya asked Willow as she walked away. Willow entered the stockroom, Where Spike was unloading some new tchotchkes. She mentioned the looming threat. Spike of course already knew.

"Yes, the Qahiras have come. Something of a reunion for me. Angelus and I ran into them once, started a brawl, nearly got ourselves killed. As vampires go, they're incredibly serious. They don't even know the meaning of fun. I mean, when you got no soul, fun's all you got. But they're devoted to something bigger than themselves. I never got them. Still don't."

Willow wanted to know if Spike was going to help fight them. "I really don't think the Slayer wants me around," Spike answered. When talking with Buffy's friends, he preferred not to mention her by name. "Besides, what good am I at fighting anymore. I have enough trouble taking out normal vampires. And the Qahiras are a breed apart."

Willow still pressed on. "But Spike, over the years you've handled a sword from time-to-time, right? I mean you know how to use one. Sure, you can't hit these guys and make them fly ten feet backwards. But that's not what's required."

Spike appreciated the compliment. "Well, I do know a thing or two about wielding a gladius. But I'm not going to fight where I'm not wanted."

Disappointed, Willow left. But later in the afternoon Connor awoke and came to the store. He knew they had a mini-arsenal, and wanted to pick out something nice for that evening. He asked Spike for advice. He had never really seen Spike fight, but he saw Spike as a fount of wisdom. Every time Connor was confused, Spike answered his questions. Connor thought of him as a mentor.

Connor wanted the longest sword. Spike told him to favor compactness over length. A four foot blade would not hold firm against a heavy scimitar. If Connor used that sword to block the scimitar, it would get knocked aside. Spike recommended a thick two foot blade. The scimitar could outdistance it. But that wouldn't matter since the scimitar was a slashing sword. The shorter, compact sword could better deflect the slashing scimitar.

Spike handed Connor the four foot sword and picked up a baseball bat. Spike knocked around the long, unwieldy blade with his bat. Then he told Connor to use the two foot sword. This weapon held firm when deflecting the blows of the bat. Connor was convinced this was his weapon. He was also convinced Spike could be of use on that night.

"Spike, there are a lot of these things. And outside of the 10 Sayful, there's really only me, Buffy and Dawn. When I faced them all alone last night, I was overmatched. Dawn has Buffy's back. So will you have mine, fight by my side? It's like what Buffy said last night: fight alone, die alone.' I don't want that to happen to me."

Now this was something different. Buffy didn't want Spike around, but Connor did. And he didn't want to let the kid down. "I gotta say, I'm honored Steven, really honored. You know I got your back. I think we'll make a bloody good team."

The gang met at the Magic Shop at dusk to equip themselves. Buffy was not pleased to see Spike involved, but since Connor insisted their wasn't much she could do. Next to herself he was the best fighter, so if having Spike around made him comfortable she wasn't going to object.

After talking with Spike and Ibrahim, Connor was feeling remorseful for his previous night's argument with Willow. He also worried the incident might make Dawn think badly of him. So he apologized.

"Um, uh, Willow. I want to say something. I'm sorry about what I said last night. I did not mean to upset you, and, I, uh, did not mean to insult you. This morning, I talked with Ibrahim. I realized how wrong I was about them, and about you. Oh, and Buffy, sorry for that thing I said about the Hellmouth. I was wrong. I know that now."

Willow was surprised by this swift mea culpa. She hadn't even had a chance to yell at Connor and tell him why he was wrong. She said to him "don't sweat it, Steven. We all say things we wish we could take back."

"Yeah, no hard feelings Steven," Buffy added. "Now enough with the mushies. There's bad guys to be dusted. Let's not keep the vampires waiting."

The seven of them met the 10 Sayful at the appointed place. But their was the unresolved question of who had command. Both Buffy and Ibrahim were used to being in charge.

Buffy felt Ibrahim's stubbornness was an affront to her Slayer status. "Now I see what this is. You won't take orders from a woman. Is that it?"

"Oh sure, you have me all figured out," Ibrahim sarcastically replied. "Little miss Cosmo girl feminist. I wear a turban. So of course I must have problems with aggressive women. What, you think I want I want to put a veil on you and make you fight ten steps behind me? The issue here is experience. We have fought the Qahira al-Hakim our entire lives."

"Well here's what experience has taught me," Buffy truculently opined. "When you fight vampires, you're supposed to kill them! If you've fought them your whole lives, why aren't they all dead? Why are they here in my town?"

Ibrahim struggle to remain calm against this assault upon his honor. "If it wasn't for us there would be hundreds of Qahiras al-Hakim in your town, and you would already be dead."

Buffy was ready to at least hear Ibrahim out. "Fine, fine, fine. I get it. You thinned the herd. So tell me then, what is your grand plan?"

Ibrahim explained. "When we get to the entrance, there will be 22 Qahira protecting it. Before we fight, you must know the Qahira have a code of honor."

"They have a what!," Xander interjected. "That's ridiculous. They're evil!"

"Just because they lack souls does not mean they lack honor," Ibrahim answered. "The Qahira al-Hakim and the Sayful al-Salamiya can only fight in single combat, one-on-one. No double-teaming, as you might say. So when the battle begins we will face off against 10 vampires."

Buffy didn't like the math. "That leaves 12 for the rest of us. So the vampires can't gang up on you but can gang up on us?"

Ibrahim was prepared. He looked at Buffy, Dawn, Connor and Spike. "I have considered this difficulty. Remember, once any one of us kills the vampire we are facing, we will come over and fight the vampires which are attacking you. You do not have to kill the 12 Qahira. You merely have to deflect their blows long enough for us to come to your aid.

"To achieve this you shall form a tight circle, each of the four of you facing outwards in a different direction. This way they cannot attack you from behind. And since you are compact, shoulder-to-shoulder, the vampires will interfere with one another as they rush to attack you, and only one will be able to engage any of you at any one time.

"The ancient Greeks called this a periplus." Ibrahim could see the blank stares on the faces of Dawn, Buffy and Connor. "Well then, I guess they don't teach the classics out here in California. Your Watcher would have known what I was talking about.

"Anyway, assume this formation, defend yourselves, and the vampires will be powerless to hurt you. But do not break formation to pursue any of the vampires. Together, the four of you will be invulnerable. On your own, you will be vampire food. Only when there are only four vampires threatening you should you break formation and engage in single combat."

Ibrahim then looked at Xander, Anya and Willow. "You three, then, are the auxiliaries. You are our secret weapon." Xander giggled at this. "No, I'm serious. The Qahiras will not be expecting your attack, which will make it all the more effective."

Three of the Sayful handed each of them a ten foot tree branch which had been sharpened at one end and fashioned into a very long stake. "While the vampires are surrounding your friends, you will ambush them from behind. These pikes will allow you to kill them without getting within range of their swords. If any of them attack you, retreat. The Qahira must protect the entrance, and they will not stray far from it. Retreat a short distance, and they will leave you alone. Follow this pattern of ambush and retreat, and you will cause the Qahira considerable harm while no harm will come to any of you."

Xander, Willow and Anya liked the sound of this. Killing vampires in safety. Like having your cake and eating it too.

The moon had risen. The Sayful led the Scooby Gang to the entryway to the cavern where seven Qahira were performing the ascension ritual. Along the way, Connor was talking to Dawn. Spike was off by himself away from the others. Earlier Ibrahim heard Connor refer to him by that name. It sounded familiar. Ibrahim approached Spike to test a hunch.

"Pardon my impudence, sir, but didn't you used to be a vampire?"

Spike tried playing dumb. "What, me? I'm a human being. How could I have been a vampire? A vampire turning into a person? You, mister, should know how ridiculous that sounds."

Ibrahim wasn't buying it. He knew the vampire Spike was English and blonde. "You were with Angelus in Marrakech a little over a century ago. The two of you got into a fight with these same Qahira you are going with me to kill this evening."

Spike knew he had been found out. But he always liked notoriety. So he tried to milk his fame. "So, Ibrahim, familiar with my exploits, are you?"

"No, just the fight in Marrakech. You may find this surprising, but I am not surprised to discover that you have become a man again. We have a little omen. Vampires tend not to fight their own kind. And most vampires are smart enough to know that you don't mess with a gang of vampires as, how you say, badass as the Qahira. The Sayful have followed the Qahira for eight centuries. And you and Angelus were the only two vampires ever to provoke violence with them.

"The Qahira are evil. Generally, evil is fought by good. So the omen is that any vampire who fights with the Qahira will become good. Angel proved us right a long time ago."

"Wait a minute," Spike interjected. "You know about Angel?"

Ibrahim chuckled. "The vampire with a soul? Everyone knows about him. Why do you think vampires stay away from Gypsies?"

Spike was still glad he was notorious enough to be in an omen. "So this omen, the one about me. What else does it say?"

Ibrahim decided to pull Spike's leg. "Oh, nothing much. Just that you'll save the world. People Magazine will vote you the sexiest man alive. And you'll start at striker for Manchester United."

Spike realized he was being played. "You just made all of that up, didn't you? Or is just that last prediction rubbish and the other two on the mark?"

They were nearing the spot. Ibrahim left Spike to join his warriors, and Spike went to join Connor. The Sayful began the attack on the 22 Qahira standing guard outside this entrance. Buffy, Dawn, Spike and Connor followed in close order. Anya, Xander and Willow kept their distance.

Buffy was not comfortable to have Spike watch her back. She didn't want Spike watching any part of her anatomy. But her fighting formation needed four legs to stand on.

The ten Qahira and the ten Sayful began their dueling. The other twelve Qahira circled around Buffy and her fighting companions. The four of them assumed fighting formation. Buffy facing north, to the entrance. Connor to her right, facing east. Dawn to her right, facing south. And Spike to her right, facing west.

As it had for the Greek triremes at Artemisium, the periplus worked. The twelve Qahira struggled amongst one another to determine who would face these four humans. There was only room for four vampires to attack the four humans at any one time. And it was impossible for them to attack the humans in the flanks or rear. It was easy for the humans to parry the vampires' predictable frontal attacks.

Xander, Willow and Anya crept up behind this circle of Qahira. They reached out their pikes and poked three of them into dust. Three other Qahira turned to see what the new danger was. They gave chase. Willow, Xander and Anya turned and ran. After about 100 feet the Qahira quit their pursuit. They merely stood guard to prevent these three humans from re-entering the battle and causing any more trouble. The "auxiliaries" had killed three vampires and lured away three others. Buffy, Dawn, Connor and Spike now had only six vampires to deal with.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim took care of the vampire he was dueling. Tired of sparring with the creature, he put his sword at his side, luring the vampire to take a slash at his chest. While the vampire did this, Ibrahim leaped into the air and did a forward flip. Halfway through the flip, when his head and arms were facing downward, he swung his sword at the vampire's unprotected head. He landed on his feet behind the vampire as it turned to dust.

Then he attacked one of the vampires threatening Buffy. Soon another Sayful dispatched his vampire, tripping it up with a sweep kick to the legs and beheading it when it fell to the ground. He also came to Buffy's aid. Now Buffy and her fighters could break formation and go one-on-one with the Qahira.

This made Spike nervous. He was comfortable merely defending himself against their attacks, but didn't think he could actually kill one of these warrior vampires. He stayed on the defensive, nervously blocking the vampire's attacks and waiting for the vampire to expose himself to a counterattack.

After a while this vampire grew tired of Spike's passive resistance. He attacked Spike's left side with his sword. Spike blocked it with his sword, leaving his head exposed. The vampire sent a swift kick at Spike's undefended head. Spike lacked his vampire strength, but he still had a few of his old fighting reflexes. He moved left and rotated his body 90 degrees, so he was looking right at the vampire's left foot as it passed him by. Then he raised his sword and severed the foot midway up the shin.

Spike was shocked at what he had pulled off. The vampire was quite surprised as well. Now all it could do was hop on one leg. Spike moved around to the vampire's left side, away from its sword, and beheaded it.

Buffy meanwhile was tiring of the tedious swordplay. When the vampire swung for her legs, she leaped in the air and kicked it in the head. When he blow landed the enraged vampire charged and swung for her neck. She ducked down, rolled forward, and got up behind the vampire. Then she pulled out her stake and stabbed the vampire in the back. Buffy preferred the old tried and true.

Next to Buffy Dawn was having difficulties in her fight. Slowly but surely the vampire was overpowering her. Buffy could see this. So she went behind this vampire and staked it. Once again, the old way was the best way.

Connor also resorted to an old trick. With his shorter sword he was able to block the vampire's attacks and get close to him, where the Qahira's longer scimitar was not helpful. Connor had his old slashing dagger attached to his right wrist, the one he made in quor-toth. He put the blade to the vampire's neck and in a single stroke severed its head.

The three vampires arrayed against Xander, Willow and Anya noticed how the fight was developing, and slowly inched back towards it. When they saw Buffy and Spike were victorious, two of the three went back to engage them.

Meanwhile, two of the Sayful were defeated by the Qahira they were dueling. The stronger Qahira instinctively went after the Sayful, so Buffy and her friends were fortunate to have faced the less skilled of the vampires. But now the two victorious Qahira went after Connor. He wasn't a Sayful, so they had no qualms about double teaming him.

At that moment Buffy dusted Dawn's vampire. Dawn turned around and saw the trouble Connor was in. He was blocking the blow of one vampire when the other vampire raised his scimitar to strike him. "Steven!! Watch out!!!," Dawn screamed. As she shrieked she struck with her sword at the vampire about to hit Connor. As his sword was about to come down on Connor's chest, Dawn's sword severed the vampire's hands, which fell to the ground with the sword.

Connor turned in amazement to witness Dawn's handiwork. She then beheaded the handless, defenseless vampire. It was her first beheading. It was a real rush.

Connor then engaged the other vampire. Once again, he blocked its blows and used his shorter sword to get inside. He stabbed the vampire through its chest. With the blade still inside the vampire, Connor pulled the sword upward, until it exited just inside the vampire's right shoulder. He had nearly cut its chest in half. The vampire's right arm and the right side of his chest sagged to towards the ground. Then Connor lopped off its head. Dawn didn't know why, but she found Connor's brutality to be quite a turn-on.

Xander, Willow and Anya now faced only one vampire, and they were confident they could take it down together. Xander jabbed his pike at the vampire, who raised his sword in his left hand and chopped off the stake's point while calmy standing still. Anya tried to stake the vampire next. He grabbed her pike in his right hand and tore off its point.

With both of the vampire's hands occupied, Willow saw her chance. She drove her pike straight to his heart. But the vampire bent backward until his torso was perpendicular to his legs and parallel to the ground. This was vampire as limbo king. The pike sailed harmlessly above his bent body. While still bent back, he reached up with his left hand to chop off the stake's point. Then he stood up, smiled confidently and closed with the helpless humans.

Xander was to the vampire's left. Willow in the center. Anya to the vampire's right. He chopped with his sword at Xander and Anya, forcing them to flee further to the flanks. The three of them were now separated. The vampire assumed the man would be tougher than the women, so he went to kill Xander first.

Each of them carried an ax as a backup weapon for close fighting. But in a one-on-one fight, an ax in the hands of an untrained fighter was no match for a scimitar in the hands of an experienced Qahira. But as the vampire closed with Xander and was on the verge of cutting him to ribbons, Willow ambushed him on his right. She plunged her ax straight down through the top of the vampire's skull. The blade cut down through his right eye.

He had made a mistake in underestimating the women. But the vampire was still alive and fighting. And Willow was now unarmed. But when the vampire moved on Willow, Anya drove her ax into the back of the vampire's neck. Still, the vampire's head was not severed. But he was a bit discombobulated.

Xander took advantage of the vampire's confusion, caused by the fact he had two axes lodged in him. Xander swung for the front of the vampire's neck, cutting through his Adam's apple. But even this did not sever the vampire's head. For a few seconds, he stood there, three axes sticking out of his body. Then he fell forward. As he hit the ground, Xander's ax was driven further into the vampire's neck. It met Anya's ax, cutting completely threw the neck and severing the head. The vampire was no more. The three humans stood there, amazed with their handiwork.

There were now only 10 Qahira and 17 humans. The Qahira realized they were outnumbered. They retreated to the cavern's opening and formed a tight circle around it. The eight remaining Sayful were joined by Buffy and Connor, and the ten of them attacked the 10 Qahira. The vampires fought desperately and valiantly, even managing to kill one of the Sayful. But after a fierce and protracted fight they all fell.

The seven surviving Sayful jumped down into the cavern to kill the seven Qahira who were performing the ascension ceremony. The Scooby Gang heard several minutes of ferocious fighting: feet kicking up dust, swords clanging, men yelling.

During this fight Willow turned to Xander and said, "You know what? I learned an important lesson tonight. It doesn't matter if people come from different countries or speak different languages or worship different Gods. All of us have something in common. We all have to fight vampires. And that brings us together."

Xander smiled. "Yeah, they kill us and suck our blood, but vampires bring people together. And that story about the king who was a vampire. Why didn't they teach us that in history class? Throw in a couple vampires, and I might have actually paid attention and done the reading."

Then there was silence. The Seven Sayful returned to the surface. The Qahira were no more. Ibrahim had a deep gash in his left shoulder. Ahmed was sliced through his abdomen. "I'm not dead yet. I'm getting bettah," he announced, adding with a chuckle "I always wanted an excuse to say that."

But the Sayful of Salamiya's mission was not finished. Ibrahim thanked Buffy and her friends for helping them. But to ensure that Hakim never rises, the Hellmouth must be washed with the blood of the Sayful. "Death is our final duty. Then we shall be free," he told Buffy.

The seven Sayful then handed their swords to the seven people who helped them. Ibrahim praised the fighting abilities of Buffy and her friends and said he knew they would make good use of these fine weapons. Then Ibrahim went over to Connor, and whispered something in his ear, so no one else could hear. He told him "Always follow the path of your father and God will never forsake you, Connor."

With these last words Ibrahim and the other Sayful descended into the cavern. They stood in a circle shoulder-to-shoulder. Each man brandished a dagger, and held it to another man's throat. All seven throats were slit simultaneously. The Sayful remained standing as their blood poured into the puddle of water atop the Hellmouth. When they were drained, the seven Sayful fell, erect, into the bloody water. The instant their bodies hit the water they vanished.

Buffy and her friends then say a flash of light leap out of the cavern and race into the sky. They knew it was the souls of the Sayful ascending into Paradise. For obvious reasons, Buffy started to cry. It was all too familiar. Dawn also cried, and hugged Buffy and tried to comfort her.

Connor stood stunned. He told Ibrahim his name was Steven. There was no way Ibrahim could have known his birth name. And if he knew Connor's real name, did that mean he also knew who Connor's real father was?


	3. Chapter Three: Rock And Roll Animal

An old vampire enemy has come to town to get his revenge on Spike. Meanwhile, Xander tries to mend fences with Anya. Connor and Dawn get to spend some quality time alone. And Willow develops feelings for a new woman, and wonders whether these feelings are a betrayal of her love for Tara.

New York City. 1977. CBGB's. Inside this rock club the Talking Heads are pounding out the pulsating rhythms and chords of "Psycho Killer." Spike enters through the front door. The doorman says hi, smiles, pats Spike on the back. He walks by the bar. The bartender rushes over to greet Spike. As he walks through the club heads turn to look at him. Humans and vampires rush to greet him and pay their respects.

Spike is friendly but aloof to everyone, like a senator or mafia don greeting their sycophants. He makes his way to Drusila. She's swaying to the music. She likes David Byrne. Says he reminds her of Spike when he was human. Spike grabs her from behind, bites her neck, licks the blood. She turns and smiles. Cuts his cheek. Licks the blood. Then they kiss passionately. If this were anyone other than Spike and Dru someone would have told them to cut it out and get a room. But CBGB's is Spike's room.

Watching from a distance is a gawky young fellow with curly black hair that's just a little bit too mangy. He has a large safety pin on his leather jacket. Around his neck is a thick metal chain with a small padlock hanging from it. He wants look like Sid Vicious, but he doesn't look quite right in full punk regalia. He's a geek trying to look and act cool.

This geek's name is Maxwell. Maxwell idolizes Spike. Wants to be as cool as Spike, as powerful as Spike, as respected and feared as Spike. But he'd settle for being Spike's crony, his faithful little helper. But even this humble aspiration is out of his reach.

The song finishes. The audience applauds. The band begins playing "Memories Can't Wait." Spike mingles some more. He sees Maxwell hitting on this girl. She's tall and willowy, with light brown hair and big blue eyes. She bears a striking resemblance to a certain Sunnydale schoolgirl who had a crush on Spike and liked to hang around his crypt.

Spike likes to humiliate Maxwell, especially in front of the women. He walks over and flicks Maxwell's right ear from behind, like some high school bully. Maxwell flinches in pain.

"Hey there Maxi," Spike says as he begins the humiliation. "Continuing your efforts to get rejected by every single woman on this island, I see."

Spike turns to the young lady in question. "Greetings love," he says to her. Spike takes her right hand and kisses it, then gives her one of his sensitive rebel smile. She blushes and swoons a little.

Spike grabs Maxwell by his nose ring and pulls him aside. "Maxi, you know the rules. You know what I do to vampires who feed in this place."

Spike loved CBGB's so much he turned it into a sanctuary. Vampires could enter, but they couldn't attack humans. That would scare people away and ruin a scene which Spike cherished. He knew he would never get into Heaven. But he didn't mind, because every night he could go to CBGB's.

Maxwell tries to explain. "Spike, please understand. I'm not feeding. I love this girl. I want her to be with me forever. But I'm not going to bite her in here. Honest. I'll do it a couple of blocks away after the show. I promise."

Spike laughed. "You think a girl like that would want to be with you for eternity? Even if you're her sire, she'll dump you for the first tough, good looking vamp she lays her eyes upon. Just give it up. You're pathetic. You're a joke. You're an absurd parody of a vampire."

Spike then walks back to the girl in question. He reaches from behind, caresses some of her hair, and smells it. She turns around, sees Spike, and smiles. Most punks she met were vile and disgusting. But Spike is gorgeous, and possesses an animal magnetism she has never felt before. Spike smiles slyly at her. He can tell she wants him, and this really turns him on. He puts his hand under her chin, tilts her head upwards towards his face, and stares into her eyes, which were full of anticipation and wonder.

When he is sure he has her in his power, Spike speaks. "You, little girl, are an angel. But I'll make you so much more than that. I'll make you feel like a goddess."

She moves her lips to Spike's. At the last minute Spike pulls back and walks away. He loves to see girls want him, yearn for him. He would come back to her in maybe an hour. Give her time to smolder. Give her time to fantasize. Spike wouldn't make his final move until she on the verge up bursting with desire.

Maxwell leaves after Spike's humiliation. He can't understand it. He was always nice to Spike. He looked up to Spike. They loved the same music, followed to same bands. So why did Spike abuse him so?

Return to the present. Dawn is leaving leaving school. She is walking with her friends Janice and Brandon. Brandon's a sweet kid. But he's an awkward teenager, the kind of boy who tries so hard to impress girls he falls flat on his face.

"So, Dawn. You need, um, any help studying for tomorrow's history test," Brandon asked.

Dawn laughed. "I don't need as much help as you do."

"But see, that's the thing Dawn," Brandon replied. "You study with me, you'll know what all the wrong answers will be. Listen to me, and write the exact opposite of what I tell you. You'll ace the thing!"

"That's very kind of you," Dawn sarcastically added.

Brandon didn't catch the sarcasm. "So I swing by with my books around eight, say?"

Oh dear. Dawn had let the poor boy convince himself that she was leading him on. It was so hard to be friendly to boys without giving them the wrong idea. Besides, she planned to have plans. With another boy. "Oh, well, you see, eight o'clock, not good for me. I already have plans. Maybe some other time. Oh, look. There's my house. Buffy gets upset if I come home late. By guys. See you later."

Brandon and Janice walked away. Brandon was a tad dejected. This wasn't the first time Dawn had deflected his come-ons. "Jan, I don't get it. Why can't she understand how I truly feel about her?"

Janice sighed. "Oh, she understands. Dawn understands your feelings all too well. That's why she ran away."

At the end of the street was an old beat-up Thunderbird with very darkly tinted windows and tinfoil covering much of the glass. In the driver's seat was Maxwell. The vampire in the front passenger's seat said "that girl there. The one with the light brown hair. She looks tasty."

"We're not here to feed," Maxwell responded. "We're here to pay an old friend a visit."

Tonight was Spike's first show at the Bronze. His solo performances had attracted so much attention he decided to recruit a four-piece band and go electric. Around 3:30 in the afternoon, he grabbed his Fender Mustang and left the Magic Shop to go to the Bronze for the sound check. On this short walk he ran into Dawn.

The two of them had not talked since Spike returned. Spike decided to reach out. After all, a few nights ago they had fought shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Say Dawny, that was quite the fight the other night. You like trading in mister pointy for some cold steel? Always found myself that a little swordplay now and then livens things up."

Dawn shot a withering glance at Spike. The nerve of him, to pretend it was just like old times. "What is this? You trying to pretend you're my friend once again?"

Spike tried to act surprised, like he didn't deserve this kind of treatment. "I don't understand. Everything's changed. I've changed. What's with the cold shoulder? I think I deserve a chance."

It was apparent to Dawn that Spike was clueless. "So this is what you want? The standard drill? I'm sooo sorry! Please forgive me! I have a soul! I'm a whole new man!' That speech, from you, means nothing to me. Do you know why?"

Spike looked disappointed. He looked at Dawn in silence, and began to look pained, as if she were wounding him. Good, Dawn thought. She continued. "I liked you when you didn't have a soul. That never mattered to me. I liked you, and I trusted you, and I enjoyed being around you.

"I didn't think you were evil, or bad, or dangerous. I didn't think you could ever hurt me, or hurt anyone I loved. But you proved me wrong. You hurt Buffy. And all along you were just using me to get to her. That's why you're talking to me now, isn't it?"

"No Dawn, you've got it all wrong," Spike started to say. But Dawn walked away, and Spike gave up. He continued on to the Bronze. She continued on to the Sunnydale Public Library to check out Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar for a book report for English class.

A little later on, while Dawn was still at the library, reading the work of a woman who could definitely have used a vengeance demon, Anya left her store to try to get her vengeance back on. Connor had come by, asking for Spike. Anya said he should be back shortly. In the meantime Connor could watch the store, protect the merchandise, and guard the money.

Money, or lack thereof, was Anya's problem with being a vengeance demon. She didn't mind hurting people. But now that she had discovered the wonders of a cash economy, she wanted to be justly compensated for her effort. Anya looked back on her past and realized what a chump she had been. The supply of vengeance demons was limited. The demand for their services was very high. According to Anya's interpretation of the law of supply and demand, vengeance demons should be raking it in.

So Anya decided to test her theory. She went to a local bar. She knew people who drank in the daytime were a sad lot, with a lot of misery. This was where you found scorned women.

She looked down the bar for candidates. She saw a woman, mid thirties, with redness under her eyes. This indicated she had been crying. Perfect! Anya moved in, struck up a conversation, played the sympathetic listener.

Classic story. Anya had heard versions of it a hundred times. Married eight years. Two children. Wife quit her job as a paralegal to raise the kids. Husband was a salesman (Anya knew this was always a bad sign). Travelled a lot. Fell in lust with a younger woman he met on the road in Boulder. A purchasing agent for one of his clients. He's leaving his wife for her.

Anya went into her own sales pitch. "Now I can imagine that you feel a little angry. Your husband betrayed you. You changed your whole life to please him. But he abandons you. And your children. You want to make him pay, don't you?"

"What are you, a divorce attorney?," the woman asked.

Anya laughed. "No. But I can give you justice. Swift, sweet, vengeful justice. For a modest price, of course.

"For $100, I'll make your cheating husband impotent.

"For $500, I won't make him impotent but I will give him syphilis, which he will then pass on to his mistress.

"For $1,000, I'll give your husband an erection which won't go down. He'll walk around for days with this thing popping up his pants. Then he'll get gangrene and either die or have his penis amputated.

"For $5,000, I'll give you the Jerry Springer Special. Your husband will get syphilis, which he will give to his mistress, whom he will also marry. Then he will fall madly in love with his own sister, and desperately try to court her. This will humiliate him in front of his own family, who will then shun him. Also, his new wife, the one he has given syphilis to, will divorce him."

Now the woman was a little freaked out. "Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"I'm the answer to your prayers, the granter of your wishes" Anya said. "My job is to punish unfaithful men. I have the power to make your husband pay for what he did to you. I provide vengeance. For a modest fee, of course."

The woman looked down at her empty white wine glass. She had only had three drinks. She wasn't drunk enough to imagine something this bizarre. "Pardon me, but is this some sort of joke, like Candid Camera."

"Vengeance demons don't joke," Anya said. "I'm a vengeance demon. Say that you wish something bad would happen to your husband, and I will make it so."

No this was just getting ridiculous. "Demons! What kind of crazy weirdo are you?," the woman asked Anya.

"I'm not a crazy person," Anya replied. "Could a crazy person do this?" Anya put on her demon face. "No they couldn't, but a vengeance demon can. No go ahead, make a wish."

The woman screamed, knocked her glass to the floor, and ran out of the bar. Anya had neglected a cardinal rule of business: know your customer. The vengeance demon racket worked because the demon did not expose her true identity until after the customer had made a wish. The vengeance demon's customer does not know they are purchasing anything. They're making idle wishes they don't expect to come true.

For payment there must be a contract or agreement beforehand. For an agreement to take place the customer must know what she is buying. And she must know what is selling it to her. Thus they must believe vengeance demons exist. For most people, this requires serious revision of reality.

After the woman ran away screaming Anya began to understand this. But she did not understand a second point. The customer must also want what they are purchasing. If you tell a woman you are literally going to do horrible things to the man who wronged them, they might have second thoughts. They might hate this man. But they would hesitate to cause another human being grievous bodily harm.

This means the women vengeance demon assist don't really want to hurt the men that wronged them. It means vengeance demons grant wishes people don't really want to come true. In other words, it's a con. The demon tricks a person into causing something to happen which they did not want to happen. But Anya was not ready for this sweeping conclusion.

A few minutes after Anya left, Spike came back to the Magic Shop. Connor smiled when he saw him, and ran to meet him. Spike was glad to see one of the few people he knew who actually wanted him around. "You didn't come all the way out here just to see me, did you Steven?," Spike modestly asked.

Connor explained. "After the fight last night, I didn't get chance to thank you for your help. Buffy and the rest of us couldn't have done it without you. Also, thanks for the advice about swords. You were right. With that short, heavy sword I could get inside on those vampires and slice them to pieces. I like to slice."

"I have to say you are quite the killer, young sport," Spike replied. "I'm just glad your dad was a good guy. Otherwise you could have been quite the monster, instead of this town's answer to Sir Lancelot."

The Lancelot line was fortuitous. It distracted Connor from the monster comment, which left by itself would have deeply angered and unnerved Connor. But Holtz had told him a bit about Camelot, and he was honored to be compared to a great mythical warrior. But the metaphor confused him.

"So who's King Arthur?," Connor asked Spike.

"I guess King Arthur would be, well, Buffy. Of course, Xander is no Knight of the Round Table. So the parallel doesn't hold. Except for you, of course. You come out of nowhere, slay the bad guys, fight like you're out of a bloody comic book. And to think, you're just a kid. You're just getting started."

Connor was genuinely touched by this. "Guess I learned from the best. First my father. Now you."

"Bollocks. Stop that," Spike responded to this excessive praise. "I'm just a weak old bloke who's barely powerful enough to keep himself alive."

"It's not your power I want to learn from. It's your mind," Connor explained. "When I was little, my father taught me that the warrior with a strong mind always beats the mindless beast with a stronger body. If I can learn all that you know, nothing can stop me."

His brains. Connor's brawn. Spike realized he could make a monster out of Connor yet. He told Connor "so I guess this was your plan all along, Steven. You came here to train. Is that it?"

"I've seen that room off to the side, with all the weapons. Looks like someone set it up to practice fighting."

Spike knew that someone was Giles. Now Connor wanted Spike to be his Watcher. Spike was filled with a mixture of honor and dread. He was honored Connor thought so much of him. But he dreaded turning into Giles. Yet, as always, he couldn't say no to Connor. The kid was growing on him, filling Spike with paternal emotions he had never felt before.

So they trained. Just basic techniques. Spike was new to the whole Watcher thing. Told Connor how balance was everything. Used almost the same words Angel used when he tried to train Connor. But Connor knew that with Angel this was all an act. But to him Spike was the real deal — a replacement for Holtz. Before he was killed Holtz told Connor he had taught him all he could. He said Connor now needed a new mentor. He had found that mentor in Spike.

Back at the Summers house Willow came home and chatted with Buffy. Dawn was still at the library. Willow mentioned Spike's performance that night at the Bronze. Buffy really wasn't interested. And she still thought Willow had a crush on Spike.

Willow explained why Spike's presence shouldn't prevent Buffy from going to the Bronze. "There's gonna be hundreds of people there. A cornucopia of sanguinary Scooby Snacks for the vampires of this town. I think you should be there. You know, as our protector."

Buffy accepted Willow's argument. "Okay I'll go. But only in the interests of public safety. Just cause Spike wants to play rock star is no reason for me to endanger hundreds of innocent people whose only crime is wanting to see that lout on stage." So Buffy could go there while Dawn and Connor handled patrolling.

Xander came home from work to find Connor gone. He figured he might be with Spike at the Magic Shop. Xander noticed that Connor held Spike in high esteem.

Xander entered, saw Spike, and asked him "you seen Steven around here?"

"Matter of fact I did," Spike responded. "You just missed him. You're not going to believe this, but he came here to train — with me!"

"What is this, part of your full Giles makeover?," Xander asked.

"I have no interest in becoming Professor Tweed," Spike answered. "Steven just comes in here, demands I teach him everything I know. Like I was gonna say no and let the kid down. What can I say? Don't know why, but he trusts me."

Xander leaped on this answer. "Oh, that's just perfect. I'm sure Steven would love to learn all that you know. How to kill people. How you drink their blood. In case you haven't noticed, he doesn't exactly like vampires."

"Is that a threat?," Spike shot back. "Steven sleeps on your furniture, eats your food, so all of a sudden you act like you're his father. What the bloody hell! Where do you get off telling Steven who he can and can't spend time with?

"What can I say?," Xander replied. "The kid's new in town. He needs someone to look out for him."

"You're right Xander. Steven knows he needs someone to watch his back. And he chose me. Now if you will excuse me, daddy dearest, I have to mosey on over to Bronze and get ready for my close-up."

Xander would have liked nothing better than to tell Connor what Spike really was. But he had no authority over Connor. Connor was a good friend who lived with Xander. Xander helped him out, gave him advice. But Connor could come and go as he pleased. When it came to Connor Xander had no interest playing the father, or even the older brother.

Before Spike left Xander remembered something he had been meaning to ask him about his transformation.

"So, Spike, that chip still doing the Clockwork Orange to your noggin?"

"Lemme check," Spike responded. Then he punched Xander in the stomach. "Nope. The headaches are gone."

Xander struggled for breath. "Ow, Ow, okay nice to know. Now if only I could pull my spleen out of my lungs."

Spike flashed a mischievous smile. "Wait a sec. Let me make sure." He punched Xander in the nose. "Yep, chip seems to have stopped doing that horrorshow to my mind."

Xander grimaced and put a hand to his face. "Well, it's nice to know you're back to your old self. You sure they gave you a soul?"

Spike went out the door. Xander wiped under his nose. No blood. He dashed outside and yelled down the sidewalk "by the way Spike, you punch like a girl! You know, the weak, non-slayer sort of girl!"

Then he went back inside. Xander noticed Anya. They were alone, together. It would be rude of him to say nothing, especially after fighting vampires side-by-side with her twice in the last month. So Xander reached out. "So Anya, you were great the other night, against the Cohiba. We're getting good. You, me, Willow make quite the slayer team."

Anya was still angry at Xander for going awol at the altar, and she was mad that her attempt to get paid for vengeance had failed. "Oh I'm sure you'd really like that. The three of us. That's all you men think about. Having two women at once."

Xander gasped in astonishment. "Oh, now that's fair! I mention slaying and you twist it into sexual perversions. What sort of gigantoid leap of insanity led you to that conclusion? I paid you a compliment! I am trying to be friendly here."

"Dear me. I'm so so sorry. I forget you were friendly Xander. Look up in the clouds, it's friendly Xander, saving the day with his magical splendiferous cheerfulness.' He never hurts anyone. He lives to make people happy."

Xander saw where she was going. "Look. Anya, I understand that nothing I can ever say or do will make up for the pain I have put you through, will atone for my abandoning you, for betraying the trust you had in me. But this guerrilla war of words you're waging doesn't help either of us. Seeing my best friend nearly destroy the world made me question these petty squabbles. It made me realize what a waste it was to wallow in bitterness."

Anya saw it clearly now. "Well I apologize. I forgot I was talking to Alexander the Great, the hero of humanity, the mortal man who saved the planet with luuuv. I give in. Your powers are too much. Quick, hold me in your arms so I can cry on your shoulder and make everything all better!

"You held my future out before me. And then you ripped it away. Without warning. Without explanation. I planned my life around you. And you tell me sorry honey, I don't want to do this right now. Maybe later. No hard feelings.' You took a torch to my dreams and calmly walked away as they went up in flames.

"So I'm sorry if I can't forget or forgive you. But don't give me that sensitive-guy-who-cares-for-me drivel, like I should feel guilty for being upset with you. Just because you saved the world does not mean I will forgive you for what you did to me."

It was clear to Xander this wound would take more time to heal. He remembered that Connor left the Magic Shop. He must be home by now, waiting for Xander.

He drove home and found Connor on the couch watching a movie. He had moved beyond action films, and was now devouring Xander's collection of classic teen comedies. Connor wanted to learn about what people his age did in this strange and unfamiliar world.

He had on "Fast Times At Ridgemont High." Xander entered during the legendary scene when Phoebe Cates steps out of the pool to the pulsing of The Cars' "Moving In Stereo." Xander stops. Looks. Savors. Almost makes him feel young again.

"So Steven, I see you're studying astronomy. The movements of heavenly bodies and all."

Connor thought a second. Got the joke. Then asked Xander a question. "So this movie, is that what it's really like? Is that what high school was like for you?"

"Well, you see, Ridgemont didn't have vampires. They worked at the mall. We blew apart demons with rocket launchers at the mall. But deep down, we were like the characters in the movie. Obsessed with the opposite sex, yet also completely ignorant of the opposite sex." Xander thought for a second, then added "but none of my friends had a pool."

Then Xander thought of "Moving In Stereo." And he thought of the girl in the bathing suit, getting out of the bathing suit. And then he asked himself, did Cordelia have a pool? She was rich enough. Come to think of it, he never went to her house, and she never went to his.

And then the two thoughts merged. It was Cordelia in the bathing suit stepping out of the pool, moving in stereo. Xander hadn't thought of her for many months. And he hadn't thought of her in this way for several years. He had forgotten how that body used to make him feel.

Connor noticed Xander was spaced out. "Uh, Xander. You there? Everything all right? Xander? Hello Xander?"

Connor shook Xander's right arm. This jolted Xander out of his poolside fantasy world. "Oh, Uh, sorry Steven. Nostalgia moment. Back to the present, the here and the now, the — hey look and the time — it's time for dinner."

Xander heated up some lasagna and the two of them ate. Connor was scarfing down some fudge brownies for dessert when Buffy called. Xander answered. Buffy explained she was going to the Bronze to protect the club's patrons. Xander wasn't too eager to see Spike perform, but if Willow and Buffy were attending, he might as well go along with his friends. Buffy then told Xander to tell Connor he and Dawn were to handle Buffy's patrol.

Xander agreed and hung up. "Who was that?," Connor asked.

"Just Buffy. She's going to protect the Bronze tonight, make sure the vampires don't make a smorgasbord out of people foolish enough to pay to be around Spike. So you and Dawn are going to patrol alone tonight."

Connor felt that funny feeling again, the one he first experienced when he first saw Dawn. Stomach tightening. Pupils dilating. Mouth drying. Heart racing. The mind dreaming while the body was still awake.

Connor sat frozen, mouth agape, eyes staring into the distance. He would have looked so romantic if he didn't look so goofy, with his mouth covered in fudge and meat sauce. Xander walked over. "Steven? You okay? Ground control to Major Steve. Anyone home?"

Men form rock bands for two reasons: to impress girls, and to get revenge on everyone who ever picked on them, ever beat them up. Spike perhaps was the first man to fuse these two motivations. He wanted to impress the girl who picked on him and beat him up. Anyone could sleep with one woman to make their ex-girlfriend jealous. Big deal. Having your ex-girlfriend see one hundred women gazing at you, wanting to sleep with you. Now that was special.

Spike clumsily tuned his Fender Mustang. He saw some metalhead abuse this magnificent instrument in a club on the Sunset Strip in 1981. What cruelty, Spike thought. After the band left the stage, Spike killed the guitarist and stole his axe, as well as his amplifier. To Spike this was a humanitarian gesture.

He practiced and played, but only for Drusila. He feared if other vampires saw him playing they would think he was soft. When he was injured and wheelchair-bound he was too depressed to play, especially after Angel muscled in on his woman. Spike had not touched the instrument for five years when he came back to Sunnydale as a human. But his skills quickly returned.

Spike came out into the footlights. Heard lots of loud cheers. Saw the place was pretty crowded. Remembered how the Ramones played their first gig in front of three people. And here he was in front of over one hundred. He then pounded out the chords to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers' proto-punk rave-up "Someone I Care About:"

"Well I don't want just a girl to fool around with.

Well I don't want just a girl to bone.

What I want is a girl that I care about.

Or else I want nothing at all."

That went well. As did the Sex Pistols' "Holiday In The Sun" and the Replacements' speed punk version of Big Star's "I'm In Love With A Girl." After that Spike took a swig from his beer bottle and gazed out over the crowd looking for Buffy. He could not see her. Some jerk up front yelled for Spike to play "White Wedding." Spike spat on his head.

Spike then began Bruce Springsteen's "Darkness On The Edge Of Town," where a scoundrel sings about his illicit affair with a good woman who is trying to lead a respectable life. The scoundrel long ago decided to "pay the price for wanting the things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town." Buffy entered the club with Willow and Xander as Spike began singing the second verse:

"Everybody's got a secret life,

something that they just can't face.

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it.

They carry it with them every step that they take.

Till some day they just cut it loose.

Cut it loose or let it drag em down."

Spike followed this with David Bowie's "Queen Bitch," which he would claim was not about Buffy, unlike most of the songs he was playing. Buffy hadn't even looked at the stage. She walked up to the balcony, where the vamps liked to ply their trade. She saw two vampires moving in on two girls who looked no older than 14 or 15. Nothing she hadn't seen a million times before.

Buffy spun both vamps around. "What's the matter, fellas? Can't handle a real woman?" She bashed their heads together, and they fell to the ground. Buffy staked the vampire to her right before it could get up. The vampire to her left got up and swung a wild right hook at Buffy's head. She ducked, got behind this vamp, and staked it.

The two girls stood stunned. Buffy looked at them. Thought of how she worried about Dawn. Thought about how these girls' parents must worry about them. "See what happens when you go out on a school night," she said to them. They ran downstairs and out of the club. One near-death experience involving men who turned to dust was enough for them that evening.

As the girls ran out they were spotted by Maxwell. He grabbed one. One of his minions grabbed the other. Both drank lustily. This time, Spike was not around to ruin Maxwell's fun.

Maxwell was once David Silver of Mineola. His father was a prosperous dentist who could afford to send Maxwell to Syracuse University. One night, while home for Winter Break in 1971, Maxwell took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan to catch the Velvet Underground. They were playing a series of farewell concerts at a club called Max's Kansas City.

Maxwell yearned for something more exciting than the comfortable, prosperous suburban world he grew up in. That's why he loved Lou Reed. Lou grew up five miles north of David. Like David, Lou went to Syracuse. Like David, he was miserable there. David wanted to follow Lou's footsteps into the dark underbelly of urban life, where a creative person's soul could thrive.

David was bitten at that Velvet Underground show and became a vampire. He renamed himself Maxwell, after the club where his vampire life began. David found most vampires boring. But Spike was different. He was smart. He was so cool. He had great taste in music. He had David's taste in music.

But this bond did not bring them together. Maxwell learned Spike was a big Lou Reed fan. Maxwell told Spike about seeing the Velvet Underground. Spike could care less about anything that came out of Maxwell's mouth. He abused him, picked on him, and got off on it. Maxwell never understood this. He was always nice to Spike. He admired Spike. Why would Spike treat him so cruelly?

Speaking of men who idolized Lou Reed, Bowie's "Queen Bitch" had been inspired by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Spike followed this up with "The Passenger," an Iggy Pop song produced by David Bowie. During Spike's glory days in New York in the seventies, he thought back on his early years with Angelus. He liked to imagine that he was Bowie to Angel's Lou Reed. As he played the minimalist, infectious riff over and over, it occurred to him that maybe Connor was Iggy Pop to his Bowie. Of course, before he met Bowie, Iggy was a protege of Lou Reed. This didn't occur to Spike.

Spike's band stretched out this song. Zooey, his guitarist, ripped into an extended soloing while Spike held down the main riff. Spike picked his musicians much the way Prince selected the members of his first backup band, the Revolution. He looked for attractive and distinctive men and women who also played real well and had really good taste in music. Spike had seen seem enough TRL to know how much contempt most young people had for quality music. So if they weren't excited by great music, at least they would be excited by the eye candy playing that great music.

There was Sterling on drums, Aidan on bass, Elise on keyboards, and Zooey on guitar. Zooey was petite and athletic, with a fiery attractiveness. She wore a black leather haltertop and had spikey purple hair. Oh and, by the way, she could play really well.

Xander and Willow had met up with Anya. Anya had been there since the show's start. Anya was having trouble understanding why all these women were so excited by Spike. "It's absolutely ludicrous. I mean, he's a stockboy. Making less than minimum wage. Who doesn't even have his own apartment. And he's getting paid, like, $50 at most for this show. And women who drove here in BMW's are losing their minds over him.

"But then I thought about it some more, and remembered, hey, I've slept with this thing all these women are dying to get their hands on. I have had what they want. And it occurred to me. Sometimes sex is about love. But sometimes it's about acquiring property. I feel like I have a more expensive car or a bigger house than they do. It's delightful. It's delicious. It's wonderful!"

"I'm glad you've experienced the joys of sexual conquest," Xander sarcastically reacted to Anya's speech. "You've grown so much. Now you look at a human being not as a person, but as a thing. Of course, as humans go, Spike's closer to thing-ness than just about anybody. Speaking for myself, it's nice to know that you weren't dating me; you were leasing me."

This was rich, Anya thought. Xander talking about personal growth. "I've learned to learn from experience. I know that love doesn't bring eternal happiness and bliss. It makes you vulnerable. Love someone, and they can hurt you in the worst way. You taught me that. You taught me that if you treat men like people, they can make you suffer."

Now this was vengeance, Xander thought. Anya didn't stab Xander with insults. She showed Xander the horrible wounds he inflicted upon her. She made Xander realize that he could hurt people, that he could ruin a life. Anya did not let Xander feel her pain. She let him feel something far worse. She let Xander know that he could not possibly comprehend her pain. And if he could not do that, he could not atone for inflicting that pain.

Willow had drifted away from this ex-lover's spat. She looked up to the stage, and saw Zooey. It was the first time she had felt physically attracted to a person since Tara died. In fact, it was the first time she had felt physically attracted to a person other than Tara in three years. It was your classic infatuation: the hundreds of people in the room disappear. Willow can only see Zooey.

Then the song ended. The audience applauded. Willow was dragged back into harsh reality. And she thought of Tara. Thought how she was betraying Tara by looking with desire at another person. Willow ran into the bathroom. She stared at the mirror. Ever since Xander pulled her back from the precipice, Willow had believed she could never love another, never even want another. Why now was she tempted to forsake her true love?

Buffy stayed on the balcony, looking down to spot trouble. Near the end of Spike's first set she inadvertently wandered near the spot light. As it panned across the stage it illuminated Buffy for an instant. Spike saw her. He was beginning John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." The song could come across as a sappy ballad. But Spike knew Lou Reed had covered the song. If it was cool enough for Lou, it was cool enough for Spike. It was also entirely appropriate. Man apologizes to the woman he loves for acting like a monster:

"I was trying to catch your eyes.

Thought that you was trying to hide.

I was swallowing my pain.

I was swallowing my pain.

I didn't mean to hurt you.

I'm sorry that I made you cry.

I didn't want to hurt you.

I'm just a jealous guy."

After this tender song, Spike ended the set with a fiery rendition of the Velvet Underground warhorse "Sweet Jane." Spike went backstage, grabbed another beer. He looked out at the floor, and saw Buffy moving towards the stage. His heart raced. His gambit had paid off. He burst out to greet her.

Buffy spoke. "That Lennon number. It was cute. You know what? I have a request. It's one of his later works."

"Oh really!," Spike exclaimed joyfully. "Which one?"

"Starting Over'," Buffy cooly answered. "Start over Spike. Take one of your groupies. Take two. Take ten for all I care. But please, move on. Forget about me. It's for your own good."

Buffy walked away. Spike was disappointed, but not despondent. He thought of how many times in the past she said the two of them would never get together. "The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious." That was his favorite. He wished he had it on tape, so that every time Buffy said it was over he could play it and prove to her that when it came to the two of them, never say never. The groupies noticed him and mobbed him. He beat back their grabbing hands, and disappeared backstage.

The groupie thing mystified Xander. I mean, this was Spike! Spike was a loser as a vampire, and now was a loser with no power. Who died and made Spike Elvis? So far as Xander knew no love spells had been cast. So the attraction wasn't supernatural.

And these women. They were quite attractive. Xander would have been happy to catch the eye of any of them. Not that he would do anything with them. He still hoped against hope he could repair the breach with Anya. But the attention would be nice.

Xander sauntered over to these women, to check out if they would check him out. About a dozen of them were in a circle talking. He moved close enough to hear their chatter.

There was much murmuring. Then one of them spoke up. "He's so hot, but he rejected me and a couple of my friends when we tried to hit on him. It's like we didn't even exist as far as he's concerned. He fled us like we had some disease."

Another woman spoke up. "I heard he's gay. I mean, look at the hair and the clothes. It's such a shame, you meet a hot rock star, who lives in your town, and he's not even straight."

Spike, gay? Xander thought about this. He heh heh. To Xander this was too perfect. What's next, a rumor that Spike's dating Ricky Martin? He heh heh. How Xander enjoyed a laugh at the expense of Spike's masculinity.

So here they were. Together. Alone. In the dark. Staking vampires. In Sunnydale, this constituted a hot first date. Dawn and Connor waited around a fresh grave. The vampire emerged. Its sire approached from behind. He swung at Connor, who could not see this vampire but heard its footsteps. He ducked and turned. He grabbed the vampire by its jacket, and head-butted it in the nose.

Connor put his hands under the vampire's armpits, and tossed it about 20 feet in the air. He pulled out his stake, twirled it a couple of times, then held it out with the point facing upwards to catch the vampire on its way down.

Dawn meanwhile easily handled the vampire who had risen. She killed it in time to catch Connor's flying vampire circus. The things this boy could do.

Dawn still knew precious little about this strange boy who doted on her in such an adorable fashion. As they walked, she tried to gently pick his brain for details while cleverly dropping hints about future dates.

"Hey Steven, you ever been to a movie."

Connor of course had been to a movie. In this instance, he told Dawn the truth. Kind of. "Yes I have. I saw it with my father in a car. It was nice. I liked the big pictures and the explosions. But then this helicopter came down from the sky and these men fell out of it and they attacked me. I didn't like that part of the movie."

How odd, Dawn thought. This boy's life was nearly as weird and hers. But she knew how to spin this response. "Oh, so you haven't seen movies indoors. That's how we see them around here. That way, the men in the helicopters can't get you. (Men in helicopters? Dawn didn't even want to ask.) It could just be the two of us. Sitting side-by-side. In the dark. No one to disturb us."

Dawn playfully walked her left hand up Connor's right arm, then used that hand to rub his shoulder. Connor turned and faced Dawn. Her hand. On his body. Their was only so much a nervous lovesick boy could take. Dawn looked into Connor's eyes. She fear and trembling. And she noticed that he appeared to be hyperventilating.

No need to hurt the boy, she thought. She took her hand off his shoulder. Connor's pulse and respiration returned to normal levels. But he was disappointed, and worried he was scaring Dawn away. "I'm sorry," he began. "It's just being out here, in the graveyard, around all these vampires. It makes me a little nervous."

Now this was a lame excuse! Dawn had seen what Connor could do to a vampire. The last thing they did was make him nervous. She chalked it up to inexperience. Maybe Connor hadn't been around girls much.

So Dawn asked another of her suggestively probing questions. "No, don't be sorry Steven. You never have to apologize to me. By the way, you ever meet any girls back in Utah? You ever, oh, I don't know, have any girlfriends? You ever kiss a girl?"

Once again, Connor felt free to answer truthfully. Sort of. "When I first came to California, I met this girl. She was nice. She took care of me. She kissed me. It was nice. But then she left the room and put some medicine in her arm and died."

Connor wasn't as dumb as he looked. He realized what game Dawn was playing, and he wanted to play along. "Dawn, how about you? You ever kiss a boy?"

And Dawn thought her adolescence was traumatic! After hearing another of Connor's amazing stories, she was emboldened to answer truthfully. Sort of. "I did kiss this one boy. It was nice. But then he turned into a vampire. And I staked him."

Connor was struck by the parallel. For both of them, their first kiss resulted in death. "I guess it can be very hard to find the right person," Connor concluded. The two of them moved their heads closer together. Their lips were about an inch from touching when they were interrupted by — wouldn't ya know it — vampires.

A male and female vampire couple had watched this two kids court one another. How adorable. How delicious. The male vampire grabbed Dawn by the neck. The female vampire did the same to Connor.

As the female vampire pulled Connor backward, he elbowed her in the stomach. She lost hold of his neck. Connor kicked her in the head, knocking her to the ground.

The male vampire was a bit smarter. He held one of Dawn's arms behind her back to prevent her from performing Connor's escape move. Connor went after the male vampire accosting his beloved. He kicked for his face. But the vampire used Dawn as a shield, and thrust her in the path of Connor's foot.

He hit her with great force in the nose. It began to bleed badly. Connor saw what he had done and was sickened. "Oh no, I'm so sorry. Dawn, I am so so sorry." While overcome with remorse, the female vampire approached Connor from behind and knocked him to his knees with a blow to the back.

Though badly injured, Dawn kept her head. As the male vampire went to bite her, she stepped on his toes. He yelped in pain and let go of her. Dawn then elbowed the vampire in the nose, then punched him in the nose. "Tell me how you like it," she taunted.

While on the ground, Connor turned onto his back, put his hands to the ground, and thrust his legs upward, hitting the female vampire in the chin. He got to his feet, but she landed two punches to his mouth. He was through exchanging blows. His last kill had given him an idea.

Connor closed with the female vampire and grabbed her. He lifted her up and arched his back to through her in the air behind him. She floated into the branches of a tree about 20 feet from where Connor was standing.

Dawn was fighting under that tree. She was very mad at this vampire for using her as a shield. She was pummelling him with kicks. And then his lover flew into the branches about ten feet above his head. One of the branches pierced her heart, and her dust fell onto her lover's head. He felt the dust, turned his head skyward, and realized what had happened. Dawn took advantage of this distraction and staked the male vampire.

Connor raced over and hugged Dawn. He was so upset he was on the verge of tears. "It's okay. It's not your fault. I'll be fine," Dawn assured him. But her head was hurting. "I think my nose may be broken. But I'll be fine. I'll just head home, put some ice on it."

Dawn then headed home. Connor followed her. But the moment was gone. Tonight would not be the time for their first kiss. After Dawn went inside, Connor headed home. He felt terrible. To have come so close, and then to have ruined the moment by striking his beloved. Anxiety and anticipation tormented him. He felt like his intense yearnings would dissolve his insides.

Willow hung out with Xander for most of the second set. They even danced to Spike's snarling cover of Graham Parker's "Local Girls." To Xander it felt sort of surreal to dance to Spike's music, but he found that so long as he did not look at the stage he could pretend it was someone else.

But though together, Xander's and Willow's minds were apart. Xander fretted about Anya. He was alternately mad at her for accusing him of ruining her life and mad at himself for hurting her. Meanwhile, Willow tried to figure out whether she could move forward without dishonoring her past.

Near the end of the second set, Xander went to the restroom, and Willow retreated to the back, near the stairs to the balcony. She tried to talk herself into an acceptable resolution of her conflicted feelings.

"I love Tara. I'll always love Tara. My life will always be empty without her. No wait. That's not good. Would Tara want my life to be empty? No. But would she want me to leap onto the next cute musician who crossed my path? No.

"Okay. Okay now. Being alone and feeling all miserable is bad. Going flesh shopping at the Bronze like it's the Sunnydale Meat Market, that's also bad. I don't want to do that. But I don't have to! I'm friends with Spike. She's in Spike's band. After the show, I go say hi to Spike, introduce myself to her. Just a nice, pleasant, friendly greeting. No harm there. No harm at all."

It had been an auspicious debut for Spike's band. They drew an unusually large crowd to the Bronze for a weekday, and nearly everyone stayed until the end of their second set. A lot of people waited for an encore. Forget it, leave them wanting more, Spike thought. Besides, the band had been together for about ten days, and didn't know any more songs.

It was a quiet night for Buffy. Those two vamps in the balcony were the only ones she saw all night. Pity. A bit more fighting would have helped distract her from the guy in the spotlight: Spike. Things got so boring, she occasionally watched him. Just out of morbid curiosity. Maybe he'd forget the words or trip over his monitor.

Buffy found Xander, asked him where Willow was. Xander said he saw her go backstage after the show ended. "Oh no, she's not going after Spike, is she?," Buffy asked.

"Willow? Spike? What are you talking about?," a clueless Xander asked.

"What, you haven't noticed?," Buffy replied. "She's been hanging out with him. Going on study dates with him. Telling me how sweet and sensitive he is. Oh! And last week, she told me she saw him singing at that coffee shop, and that she found him real sexy."

"Willow said what?!!," Xander growled. His heart filled with rage. First Buffy, then Anya, now Willow. Like Spike was methodically going after every woman Xander ever cared about. Xander raced backstage. He found Willow. But he didn't find Spike.

He went back and reported to Buffy. "Spike's gone. Willow's back there. But she's talking to that girl guitar player. Well you know how Willow is. She's always been drawn to, uh, er, . . . lead guitarists."

Buffy's anxiety about Willow's blossoming friendship with Spike disappeared. "This may sound odd, but I can't tell you how relieved I am to know that Willow's still a lesbian!"

"Yeah sure. Relieved. That's the word," Xander drolly deadpanned. He was filled with a small measure of relief and a large dollop of disappointment. Lately he had been indulging in the thought that he and Willow were meant for each other. Now Xander feared he was only deluding himself.

Willow went backstage. Spike was packing up his gear. She was about to say hi, when she saw Zooey about 15 feet away. She was by herself, changing some of the pickups on her guitar. Beside her was a small stereo, playing Ani DiFranco:

"Some people ask me, are you in or are you out?

And I think, hmm, what is this about?

I just want more than one membership in more than one club.

Cause I owe my life to the people that I love."

Willow decided to introduce herself. "You played great tonight. Oh, hi there! I'm, uh, Willow, one of Spike's friends."

Zooey looked up. She thought for a moment. "Yeah, Willow. The college girl. He mentioned you. Said you were real smart. Forgot to mention you were also real cute. By the way I'm Zooey. Nice to finally put a face to the name. Especially since it's your face."

Well that was an auspicious start, Willow thought. Too auspicious. So auspicious it was actually inauspicious. Friendship, not meat market, Willow reminded herself as she blushed. "Oh, wow, thanks. I guess I could return that compliment."

"I guess you just did," Zooey coyly responded. "Could you wait a second? I just have to screw in this new pickup. When I play, the sweat goes from my skin onto the guitar and corrodes and rusts these little things."

Sweat? Skin? This wasn't friendly chat. This was flirting. And flirting did not lead to friendship. It led to something Willow did not want to believe she was looking for right about now. Time to throw water on the fire while it could still be extinguished.

"Okay Zooey, I should tell you something now. You're a really good guitarist, which is something I've been known to go for. And you're cute, in a gorgeous riot grrrl sort of way, which theoretically I could go for. But right now, that's not what I'm going for."

Zooey laughed. "Sorry if I was too friendly. I didn't mean to make you think I was looking at you like you were some groupie, another notch on my guitar. My guitar doesn't even have notches. I'm not the sort of musician who's into notching."

Now Willow wanted to make sure Zooey didn't think Willow was blowing her off. "But just because we don't want to, uh, notch, doesn't mean we can't see each other."

"We can definitely see each other," Zooey concurred. "And if we're lucky, we can even hear each other."

Willow liked Zooey's glib sense of humor. Reminded her of someone from her past. "Speaking of seeing each other, I haven't seen you around here before. You just move to Sunnydale?"

"Actually I live out east in Escondido. To be honest, before I joined Spike's band, I never came to this town after dark. Heard too many bad things."

"We have a saying in Sunnydale," Willow began. "Live each day like it's your last, because one of these days it will be."

After uttering this Willow worried how it had sounded. She didn't want to scare Zooey, or cause Zooey to think she was a little loopy. But Zooey took it philosophically. "Did you come up with that? It's so true. Very existentialist. Hey, that reminds me. When the sun's up I work in a bookstore in Vista called Avalon. You should come by sometime. So I can find out if you're as smart as you are pretty."

This was the first time Willow ever heard someone ask if she was just a pretty face. Most people didn't even find the face pretty. This girl knew flattery. Willow tried to respond in an appropriately humble and self-deprecating manner.

"The conventional wisdom appears to be that yes, I am smart, but that the boys don't find me very pretty. Most of the girls don't either."

"One thing I've learned, Willow, is that wisdom is almost always unconventional. Hope I see you round sometime."

Willow left and went back to Xander. He saw the spring in her step. "Wow Willow, you move fast. Land speed record fast."

"Get you mind out of the gutter, mister Harris. What kind of a girl do you take me for? I was just making a friend. She's cool. Her name's Zooey. But don't be jealous. She'll never take your place." Willow hugged Xander around his waist and said "you'll always be my bestest buddy."

Spike put on his leather jacket, grabbed his guitar, and walked out the rear exit. Maxwell was waiting for him. In his deep, resonant, bass voice, a voice which sounded nothing like his squeaky speaking voice, Maxwell serenaded Spike:

"Everything is quiet.

Everyone's gone to sleep.

I'm wide awake.

But these memories,

these memories can't wait.

These memories can't wait."

Spike did not recognize Maxwell. But he saw four vampires about to ambush him. One of Maxwell's minions attacked. Spike knocked it to the ground with a swing of his Fender. Another attacked. Spike ran his guitar's neck through this vampire's heart, killing it. The third minion attacked. Spike swung and put his whammy bar through the vamp's left eye.

Then Spike came to his senses. This was a vintage instrument worth hundreds of dollars. The Fender Mustang was Spike's baby. He wasn't going to destroy it for the sake of killing a few worthless vampires. Spike carefully placed the instrument on the ground near the building's wall.

One of the minions rushed Spike as he did this. After placing down his guitar, Spike turned and elbowed the vampire. He then ran towards the dumpster to find a new, less valuable, weapon. There was a 2X4 lying against the dumpster. Spike broke it in two against his knee. He put the pointy end of one piece in one vampire, and the pointy end of the other piece in the other vampire.

Now it was just Spike and Maxwell. Just how Maxwell wanted it. Maxwell threw Spike against the side of the building. Spike hit the brick wall at a rather painful velocity. Maxwell punch Spike repeatedly in the face and stomach. He never had enjoyed himself quite so much.

He grabbed Spike by his jacket. "Remember me!," Maxwell asked. Actually Spike didn't remember him. Maxwell asked again. "Do you remember me, Spike!"

"Who the bloody hell are you?," Spike asked. This enrage Maxwell. Before he just wanted to kill Spike. Now he wanted to kill Spike really, really slowly. He reached his right hand down to Spike's groin, grabbed his sack, and twisted. Spike yelped in pain. Maxwell was going to make understand how Spike had made him feel all those years ago.

Maxwell choked Spike with his left hand. His face was a few inches from Spike's. "CBGB's. 1977. Maxi.' With the curly hair and the nose ring. The ring you used to lead me around like an ox. Now do you remember?" Instead of twisting, Maxwell's right hand squeezed. Spike squealed and grunted in agony.

Now Spike did remember. This was the wannabe punk. The nicer this kid was to Spike, the more Spike made him suffer. But it was a little late for a simple apology. But Spike tried anyway.

"Maxwell, I was different then. I've changed."

"I know Spike. That's why I'm here. Shoe's on the other bloody foot, mate, as you would say, in that phony-baloney accent, with that phony-baloney Billy Idol hair. And you thought I was the poser!"

Maxwell punched Spike in one kidney, then the other. Then he returned to punching Spike in the stomach and ribs. Eventually, Spike wouldn't be able to hold himself up anymore. Then Maxwell would be free to do whatever he wanted with his dagger, scissors, and corkscrew. By then Spike would be begging for death.

After about a dozen body punches, Spike doubled over. He was standing, but just barely. Maxwell looked at his face, that ridiculously cocky face which laughed at him, that impossibly proud mouth which insulted him. So much for body punches. Time to make Spike a little less pretty.

But Maxwell only got in two more punches to Spike's mouth when Buffy arrived. She heard the sounds of a scuffle and knew it must be vampires. Buffy grabbed Maxwell and threw him into the side of the dumpster.

It had been a slow night. Buffy told Maxwell "I just want to thank you." He got up, she kicked him in the face. "At night I have all this pent-up energy. It keeps me from going to sleep." She punched him twice in the face and let loose a flying spin kick. "I need a way to blow off steam. To get rid of all my excess energy." She grabbed him and flung him into the air. He hit the asphalt twenty feet away.

Buffy was going to have some fun with this vampire. When Maxwell returned to his feet, she did a forward hand spring kick. Then she picked him up, and put him in a headlock. "You wanna know something? Slaying can be a lot like pro wrestling." Buffy sent Maxwell's head into a lamppost. "You know, the old kind of pro wrestling. Where the good guy always wins."

Buffy circled the dazed but upright Maxwell. She hit him with another flying kick. Then another. Then another. Maxwell stayed on his feet, but had been kicked back into the same brick wall he had thrown Spike up against. "Thanks, that was a great workout." And with this Buffy staked him.

She looked down and to her left. There was Spike, sitting on the ground, bruised and bloodied. Oh great. It was Spike she saved. What a waste. She looked at him scornfully and threw her stake at him. The she turned and walked away.

Maxwell had not killed Spike. But he made Spike feel the way Spike had made Maxwell felt. Spike felt pathetic, helpless, like a loser. He had to rely on the Slayer to stick up for him. He owed his life to a woman who detested him. Buffy saw human Spike as pathetic. She had told him as much every time she had the chance. Now Spike had proved her right.


	4. Chapter Four: Vicious

The legendary ogre Grendel comes to Sunnydale and starts devouring men. His appearance might be connected to Anya's lack of vengeance-wreaking. Meanwhile, Connor and Dawn have their first kiss under suitably bizarre and mildly disturbing circumstances.

"I feel so bad for him. He's just in agony."

"You feel sorry for Steven? You were the one who nearly got her nose broken."

"Yes, but that's all better now. Most of the swelling was gone by the next morning. But his pain hasn't gone away."

Buffy was out on patrol, with Dawn tagging along. Connor was not there, and had not patrolled with them for nearly a week. The trauma of striking his beloved, of shedding her blood, caused him to no longer trust himself around Dawn.

"He should have gotten over the guilt by now," Buffy responded. "I mean, you're all better. Unless! Unless he thinks he hit you on purpose."

Dawn grabbed Buffy and thrust her against a tree. Dawn had never treated her sister so violently. "You take that back. Right now!" Dawn pulled Buffy away from the tree, then thrust her back against it. Her head snapped backward and the back of it slammed into the bark. It was a little bit painful. "Steven would never hurt me! He was trying to protect me! It was the vampire's fault!"

Dawn slammed the back of Buffy's head into the bark once again. Buffy never knew this side of Dawn even existed. Perhaps Connor's ultraviolent streak was rubbing off on the girl he loved. "Steven adores me. You've seen that. That's why he's not here. He likes me so much, that now that he's hurt me – even if it was an accident – it's hurting him!"

Dawn let go. She could barely believe what she had just done. Buffy was shocked as well. "Sorry Dawn. I didn't mean to impune your boyfriend. I just, I just don't understand him. He knows it was an accident. You don't hold it against him. So why can't he forgive himself? It just doesn't make sense to me."

Of course it didn't make sense. Buffy didn't know Connor's story. Connor believed his parents were evil. A lot of teenagers believe their parents were evil. But Connor's parents were soulless demons who committed mass murders on a daily basis. At least that's what Holtz told him. Connor always feared their evil was inside him. Now he believed it was. How else could he injure the girl he loved, the girl who gave his life meaning?

Clearly he was blowing things way out of proportion. But Connor was prone to severe emotional extremes. This was visible in his extreme loves (Holtz, Dawn) and his extreme hates (Angel, anyone else he considered bad). Connor's view of the world lacked any complexity. Thus his overreaction to what had been an accident in the heat of battle. Hurting Dawn was bad. Connor hurt Dawn. Therefore Connor must be bad. That was the only way he could see the event.

He went to the beach at night, to hear the ocean. On this night he was standing at the edge of a pier. He jumped, fully clothed, into the water. He sank to the bottom. Just like his father. Connor stood there, underwater, eyes open. He wanted to know what it felt like. He stayed there for a few minutes. He didn't know this was an unusually long time for a human being to hold his breath. But then again, he doubted whether he really was human at all.

Then he bent his legs and leaped, as if jumping. He floated up to the surface. It was only then that Connor realized he did not know how to swim. But soon a wave sent him into one of the wooden poles which supported the pier. He grabbed on, as if to a life preserver. Connor then climbed up the slippery log. He didn't know that was also an unusual thing for a human to do. He climbed back onto the pier, and ran back to the beach, back to the safety of dry earth under his feet.

Back on the patrol, Buffy heard several growls. She ran to the noise. Dawn followed. The growling stopped, and they could not see the creature which was making the noise. But they did see blood splattered on several rocks. They also saw parts of human arms and legs. It was grizzly, even by Sunnydale standards.

"What did this?," a shaken Dawn asked.

"I don't know what did this," Buffy answered. "But I know what didn't do this. This was no vampire."

A little after eight the next morning, Willow came down to the kitchen. Dawn had already left for school, and Buffy was at the table eating breakfast. Willow was not a morning person.

"Rise and shine Willow?," Buffy sarcastically asked.

"On Wednesday of each week, my brain has to attend a nine o'clock class, and my body has no choice but to come along. My body and my brain have come to a little understanding. At this hour, I'll rise but I refuse to shine."

"Speaking of shining, I heard you took a shining to someone in Spike's band."

"Oh. Xander must have told you about Zooey. After lunch, I'm thinking of heading over to her and saying hi, maybe hang out a bit. I'm sure Xander gave you the wrong impression. We're just friends. I'm not dating her. No no no no no no. I'm not dating anybody. Right now, I don't feel like I'll ever want to date anyone ever again. But Zooey's cool. She's smart and funny and fun to hang out with. It's nice to make a new friend. I like to do that every five or six years."

"New friends are nice. Or at least that's what I've heard," Buffy responded. "I prefer old friends, the kinds that help me fight new enemies."

"Oo-ooh! I sense a new Scooby mission coming on!," Willow excitedly declared.

"It's really nothing to get excited about," Buffy cautioned. "It's more something to get nauseated about. I think there's something out there which ate a person last night."

"Werewolf?," Willow brainstormed.

"Full moon's not for another two weeks," Buffy explained. "And I heard it growl. It definitely did not sound like a werewolf. Didn't sound like anything I've ever heard.

"I don't have to be at work until ten. So I'm gonna take a quick look at the scene of the slaughter, see if I come across any clues in the light of day."

Buffy was about to head out the door when WIllow ran and grabbed her. "Buffy, you're forgetting something."

"You're right. I should take along my hideous Doublemeat uniform. I might have to head straight to work after my little investigation."

"No Buffy. Weapons. What if you come across this thing? You know, not all monsters sleep in the daytime."

"Good point, Willow. Thanks a bunch. After all, if I see this thing, might as well kill it the first chance I get."

While arming herself, Buffy realized that if she walked through a public park in broad daylight carrying weapons she would attract attention. So she took a short ax and a knife and a wooden stake (they can kill more than vampires). Then she thought she might want to take this thing down from a distance. She grabbed the tranquilizer gun, pulled it in two pieces so it would fit in the backpack, and left.

If anyone saw Buffy, they would think she was a regular person out for a nature walk on a warm sunny day. She went to the scene of the mauling. The rocks were washed. The body parts removed. Buffy figured the police had cleaned up the scene so as not to scare people who use the park.

Buffy now thought about where the monster could have escaped to from this spot. She figured it would go off into the nearby woods. Walking amongst the trees, she noticed a few drops of blood. The drops formed a trail. Buffy followed it. Then she heard strange noises. Similar to what she heard the night before, but more muffled and subdued.

Buffy slowly crept in the direction of the noises. When she was about 100 feet away, she saw the monster. It was devouring another human. Quietly, Buffy bent down, took out her gun, and assembled and loaded it. She carefully approached the creature. It appeared to be oblivious to her presence. When she got within 30 feet of the monster, she fired. The tranquilizer dart hit the monster square in the chest.

But the monster hardly even noticed. It finished its meal. Then it stood up, looked down, and saw the dart sticking into its flesh. It looked at this foreign object with a bemused curiosity. Then it removed this foreign object and dropped the dart to the ground.

This was not a good sign. The tranquilizers had zero effect. Buffy took out her axe and her knife and slowly circled towards the beast. When she was 20 feet away she got a good look at it. Its skin was gray, with specks of light brown. It stood on two legs. It was hunched over, but still stood about six feet from head to feet. Its proportions were roughly human. But its right arm was about two feet longer than its left arm. And both of its forearms were huge, like Popeye's.

The creature spotted Buffy. She was scared. But it did not approach. It did not get angry. It just stood and stared. No growling, no menacing. Just observing. Buffy feared that if she ran it might pursue. So she also stood still, sizing up the creature which was sizing her up. Then the creature looked bored, like it had something better to do than stare at Buffy. It walked away into a cave. Buffy did not pursue.

Spike was asleep in his crypt. The previous evening his band played its forth show at the Bronze in seven nights. After the show several people representing other clubs in the area approached Spike, talked about booking him. After more than a century, He was becoming something of an overnight success. Now that the night was over, this overnight success wanted to sleep in during the day.

But it was not to be. Clem burst in. Spike woke up. "Oh, for crying out loud, mate! Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Uh Spike. It's 10:30," Clem answered.

Spike put the clock up to his face. Saw this was the case. "Bloody hell! I have to be into work in 30 minutes. Er, screw it. Like I need that sod awful job anyway."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you had a show last night. How's the whole showman thing going anyway?"

Spike was looking for water to splash on his face. He didn't find any. But he found some gin, put it in a glass, and splashed it against his face. "Going great guns. They love me. I mean, they really love me. Oh, that's just superb. One week and I'm already sounding like a showbiz phony."

"No you're not," Clem assured him. "I watch E! all the time, and you're nothing like them. But that's not why I'm here. There's big trouble out there."

"Oh, come on, Clem. There's always big trouble round these parts. You've lived here long enough to know that."

"This is different. The demons, the ones that usually cause the trouble, are scared of this new thing. I've been going around, talking to some folks, and something's arrived that scares even the evil ones in this place."

"Sounds good," Spike responded. "I'm for any big bad that makes the little bads quake in their boots. What is it, some super demon killer?"

"No, it hasn't killed any demons. They run away before it has a chance to kill them. But it's eating people."

"A people eater?" Spike thought this over. "Pardon my asking, but it's not a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater, is it? Would be kind of funny. Except for the people-eating part."

"That's cute, Spike. But I'm not in a joking mood. And for the record, no. It doesn't fly. And it's not purple."

Spike expanded his cultural reference points beyond novelty songs. "An ogre! Sunnydale has an ogre! And it's about bloody time. We've had everything else."

Clem was confused. "An ogre? You mean like a really mean, really bad person?"

"Nonsense. I'm talking about the real McCoy. A monster that eats people. They're all over the place in stories and legends. They're kind of the original big bad. Before people wrote about vampires or werewolves, they wrote about ogres. Well, I guess they're not just in stories after all."

Clem was still nervous. "In these stories, do the people kill the ogre?"

"Of course. Actually, the people don't. Some hero does. Some person with supernatural ability." Spike thought a second, then smiled. "Poor unlucky ogre. He came to the one town which has its own superhero."

Clem was relieved, but puzzled by Spike's insouciance. "You're feeling sorry for the ogre. It's killing people!"

"Well it won't be killing people for long. Beside's Clem, I don't thinks ogres eat demons, so you should be fine." Spike by this point was ready to head on down to the Magic Shop. All this talk of ogres had put a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step.

Later on, at the store, Anya had some questions for Spike. "You were 15 minutes late today, and an hour late yesterday. Does this have anything to do with that whole crazy music thing you've begun?"

"Actually, the crazy music thing is going quite well, thank you very much. Wit-ah-little-bit-ah-luck I won't need this wretched job no more."

Anya responded with deep condescension. "Oh, now isn't that adorable. The stockboy has a dream! Now, I don't know much about music, beyond a few tenth century Russian folk songs and the score to Grease.' What can I say? I found the young John Travolta yummy. I've seen you doing that whole performance thing, and the people appear to like it. I mean, they didn't even throw things at you. I think that's a good sign.

"But I have watched enough episodes of Behind the Music' to know that even if everything goes right and you achieve your dream, you'll be back here in 18 months suffering from heroin withdrawal and begging for your old job back. So I wouldn't go burning your bridges just yet, mister superstar."

"So nice to know you wish me well, love," Spike sarcastically replied. "By the way, since you asked me about my second job, how bout I ask you about your second job. How is the vengeance treating you these days."

"Poorly," Anya began. "In more ways than one. The trouble is, everyone wants vengeance but no one wants to pay for it. It's outstandingly frustrating. I mean, if I were a scorned woman – actually, I am a scorned woman. So you see, as a scorned woman, I would gladly pay a small price to avenge the wrongs which a certain callous man with oversized upper arms has done to me. Any other scorned women should feel the same way. I mean, is $1000 to much to pay to ruin the life of the man who ruined your life?"

Spike laughed. Now he could be condescending. "Well, well, well. It would appear that little Anya has yet to learn one important lesson. See, people won't purchase a service from an entity they believe does not exist. Now, given who you have hung around, it's understandable that you overlooked something important. Wanna know what that is, little lady? I'll tell ya."

Then Spike yelled in her ear. "People don't believe in demons! Almost no one on this planet believes in demons! So you go up to some woman, say hi, I'm a Vengeance Demon, and I'll magically make your ex-husband suffer,' and they'll look at you like you're a mental case." This little speech made Spike feel very good. Finally, he was getting back at Anya for all her stockboy gibes.

Anya wasn't fazed by Spike's little harang. "Actually, I have noticed that. It does make the job difficult. But you think there would be a few people around here – out of all the places on earth – who would be aware of these things and would decide to start making the Hellmouth work for them, so to speak."

"So have you actually avenged anyone since getting your powers back?," Spike asked.

"No. Not like I couldn't have. I just won't work for free. I give people something of value, and should be properly compensated. Once I find people who will properly compensate me, I'll avenge like I've never avenged before."

"So how long has it been since you regained your powers?"

"Lemme think. It was spring. Xander ripped my heart out and danced the cha-cha on top. So that was, like, say, about six months ago."

"I take it that's a long time to go without. In the old days, what was the longest you went between vengeance spells?"

"Maybe a little over a week. I mean, I was busy then. Everyone wanted what I had, since like all the other clueless Vengeance Demons I was giving it away for free."

This struck Spike as an unusually long time. "So going without for this long, anyone else ever done it? And if you refrain from doing your job for too long, are you punished for, you know, derelicting your duty?"

"Come to think of it, it never came up. I don't know if anyone's gone without as long as I have. But then again, no one's become a Vengeance Demon, become a person again, and then become a Vengeance Demon yet again. I'm like you. The exception that proves the rule. The freak."

After her morning classes, Willow did finally muster up the courage to go to the Avalon bookstore in Vista. She would prove to herself that she had nothing to fear, that this was only a friendship, that she was certainly not trying to find a replacement for Tara.

Willow entered. She spotted Zooey near the back, reshelving books. She walked over to her. "Uh, hi Zooey. It's me, Willow."

Zooey turned and smiled. "Willow! Great to finally see you again. I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about little old me. So how are things going? How's college?

"Well, college is college. It's fine I guess. I mean, they haven't kicked me out yet. So I suppose I'm doing well. So, uh, how are things with you? How's the band doing?"

"Band's great. I mean, people actually want to hear us. It's amazing. People want us to play in San Diego, Pasadena. It's like we can't book the shows fast enough. I mean, I've been in other bands. I have friends who've been in tons of different bands. But I've never seen anything take off like this is taking off. I mean, Spike is just unbelievable. Totally one of a kind. I can't believe I never noticed him before. How long have you known him?"

Willow thought about this. "I guess we first met about five years ago. I've only known him well for about three years."

"So did he play back then?," Zooey wondered.

"Actually, no. I didn't even know he played the guitar until I saw him onstage a couple of weeks ago. He never mentioned that. It just came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, he's a musician. Guess it goes to show people go through changes." Willow knew plenty about that.

"That's so weird," Zooey opined. "People don't get up one day and decide to become rock stars and start selling out clubs the next week. Especially not at Spike's age. He's what, 25, 30?"

Did she mean human or vampire years? Well, human of course. But Willow didn't know how old Spike was in human years. "I'm not sure. Somewhere around there. He doesn't talk much about his age."

This told Zooey something. "Doesn't talk much about his age? Whew, he must be old!

If only Zooey knew, Willow thought. But Willow was more interested in how Zooey appraised Spike as a person, especially since she knew nothing of his past. What would a person think of human Spike if they only knew his human side? "So Zooey, you get along with Spike well? I mean, is he a nice guy to you and the rest of the people in the band?"

"Oh yeah, he's real nice. Very self-deprecating. Always joking about how lousy a musician he is and how great we all are. But he's often very quiet. Doesn't talk much about himself."

Spike, self-effacing and quiet? Of course, he had a reason not to talk much about himself with these people. There was an awkward silence, which Zooey broke. "Enough about Spike. I've seen plenty of Spike, but barely any of Willow." Was this a come-on, Willow wondered? "There's a nice coffee shop across the street. We can go there and talk."

Go somewhere together to consume beverages? To Willow this sounded an awful lot like a date. "Across the street? You mean, you don't have coffee here?"

Zooey joked that "it's the strangest thing. A bookstore without coffee. In this day and age. Come on, let's go. I mean, if you want to."

To reject coffee would seem a tad Draconian. "Sure, why not?," Willow answered. Besides, she was still a bit drowsy from getting up so early. The caffeine rush would do her some good.

Spike was preoccupied with Anya's lack of vengeance. It wasn't natural. It upset the balance of forces or something. Becoming a Vengeance Demon is not like receiving a title of nobility. Vengeance Demons aren't supposed to sit around doing nothing. They are given powers so that they can use them. By now Anya should have provided vengeance for dozens of women. That's why she was given her powers back, after all.

But Anya had not fulfilled her duty. She's not meeting her quota. Vengeance has been building, with no way to release it. If it built up long enough, wouldn't it explode?

When he had the chance, Spike checked some of the old books at the store. Tried to see if anything can happen if there was a lot of unmet vengeance. Checked to see what the books said about Vengeance Demons, about their duties. About what could happen if they were not fulfilled.

And then Spike saw it. The creature Buffy spotted. The ogre. The man-eater. It was Anya who brought him here.

Willow decided once again to nip this potential relationship in the bud. While sitting and drinking coffee, she told Zooey the truth. Well, part of the truth.

"Zooey, there is something you really need to know about me. There was a woman I loved. She meant the world to me (literally, in this case). And a few months ago, she died. So I am not ready for a relationship. I'm not looking for a new girlfriend."

Zooey was naturally stunned. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I had no idea. That's horrible. That's awful. I can't imagine what you're going through. But, just because I want to spend time with you doesn't mean I have to be your girlfriend. I mean, I wasn't that interested in us being lovers anyway."

Zooey agreed with Willow. But Willow felt a bit insulted. "What do you mean you didn't want to be my lover! Are you saying I'm not good enough for you?"

"No, no, it's not that," Zooey replied in defense. "It's not that I don't want to. On some level, I do. The thing is, you're Spike's friend, and I'm in Spike's band, so it would be awkward. I mean, what if we were fighting? What if we broke up? I'd still be in Spike's band. You'd still be his friend. We'd still see each other. It would just be too uncomfortable."

Willow's ego no longer felt bruised. It was nice to be desired, even if you never intend to act upon that desire. Now she sought to return the complement. "And you, Zooey. On some level, I would want to be your lover. Certainly I find you attractive. Certainly you find me attractive. Certainly we'll never act on that attraction. I mean, it's not like you'd be the first friend I was sexually attracted to." Zooey of course had no idea how true that was in the case of Willow.

"It's nice to know we understand that we have this understanding," Zooey said. "I like spending time with you. I haven't spent much time with you. But I've spent enough to know I want to spend more. I just have this crazy hunch you're the most interesting person I've ever met. I hope you prove me right."

Spike's inner William, his inner geek, was driving his precocity. And he knew Anya must know what he just learned. "Anya, ever hear about what happens when Vengeance Demons don't use their powers?"

"I can't say I have," Anya responded.

"Of course. Of course you can't. Because it's never happened before!"

"What, is this about me?," Anya innocently wondered. "Is something awful going to happen to me?"

"Nothing will happen to you," Spike reassured her. "But I can't say the same for the men of this town. You hear about any strange animal attacks happening last night?"

Anya thought about this. "I heard on the radio this morning some man was missing and the police said it was coyotes. Are you saying it was a demon? Well of course it was a demon. This is Sunnydale. But are you saying this had something to do with me?"

Spike showed her the page in the book with the illustration of the ogre. "If a Vengeance Demon fails to use her power for six months, it creates a massive imbalance among mystical forces. The balance is redressed by this nice-looking chap. He comes around, eats ten men. This makes up for all the men the Vengeance Demon has failed to punish."

"Are you saying this death is my fault?," Anya asked.

"In a word, yes," Spike bluntly concluded.

Anya saw how unfair this was to her. "Fine! I guess I can't win. Hurting men is bad. It's immoral. It's evil. But because I don't hurt men, this thing comes and kills them. I choose not to cause suffering. And because I don't cause suffering this thing causes suffering! What am I supposed to do?"

Spike hadn't looked at the problem this way. "Come to think if it, you are in a bit of a Catch-22. No matter what you do, something bad happens. But don't worry. We'll kill this thing."

Anya doubted that would be enough. "But if you kill it, won't another ogre come here in its place to exact vengeance, to kill those ten men?"

Spike doubted this. "It's an ogre. It's not a Slayer. One doesn't rise when the previous one dies. All it says is this one ogre comes to town. Kill him, we're done."

"That is if we can kill him," Anya worried.

Spike was still confident. His inner geek was positively brimming with scholarly arrogance. "This ogre, the one in the picture. It's Grendel. It takes Beowulf to kill Grendel. And we have a Beowulf."

In the early evening, Buffy came home to find Xander pacing in the living room. "You do realize you're moving but not going anywhere," Buffy said.

"That's kind of the idea," Xander responded. "I came here to talk to Willow. But I can't go up to her room because it's filled with this huge white elephant."

"An elephant?," Buffy asked. "What is there, a Jumanji demon in town?"

This was odd. Usually it was Xander with the pithy one liners. Now Xander was the serious one. "It's a metaphor. It means something everyone can see but no one has the guts to mention."

Buffy got it. "Oh. So you want to talk to her about . . . That."

Xander explained. "We need to talk to her about . . . That. We can't just keep pretending all of that stuff never happened. We're her best friends. We have to talk it over with her, help her through whatever she's feeling. I mean, right after it all ended, we were all too shocked to say much of anything. Then a week later, she goes off with her mother for the summer. She comes back, we're too nervous to bring it up. But that's just not healthy. If we don't help her through this toughest, most agonizing episode of her life, we're letting her down."

Buffy was in agreement on this. "You're right. You're exactly right. We don't bring it up because we're afraid of hurting her feelings. But the longer we don't bring it up, the more we're really hurting her. I mean she killed a man. That changes everything for a person."

Xander was no longer in agreement with Buffy. "Warren? You think the issue is Warren? I'm sorry, but I'm glad he's dead. And I think you're also glad he's dead. Granted, it would have been better if Willow wasn't the one who killed him. And it would have been better if she didn't do it in such a gleefully grizzly manner. But that's not what I'm worried about."

Buffy was perplexed. "Your best friend kills a human being and that doesn't worry you?"

Xander clarified. "It does worry me. But it's not at the top of my list. I'll just say this: I've always had a problem with our Prime Directive:' kill only demons; kill no human beings. Yeah, I know, the police can take care of evil human beings. More or less, I'm fine with that. But how can the police take care of a human being who uses magic and demonic powers and all these things they know nothing about? They can't!

"Say we let the police take care of Warren. What if they arrest him but it's really one of his robots? What if he pulls a disappearing act, or uses one of his tricks to spring himself loose? He was a killer, and he was going to kill again. Now if we all followed your Prime Directive' and let the cops catch Warren, and they only catch him after he's killed someone else, would that have made you happy?"

Buffy saw she would get nowhere on this matter. "Okay, fine. You're down with murder. So if Willow the murderer doesn't bother you, what does?"

"Tara," Xander answered. "To lose someone she was that close to, so suddenly, right in front of her eyes. Oh, and if that didn't hurt enough, they had been apart for months, and had just made up. So the worst possible thing happens to Will at the worst possible time. How can anything really matter to her after that? Sure, she goes through the motions. Hangs out with us. Goes to school. But does she see a point to it all?"

"I know a thing or two about grieving. I know something about struggling to find a reason to go on," Buffy began.

Xander quickly interrupted her. Very rude of him, if he did not have a good reason. "But Willow is not you. She hasn't always had people around telling her she lives on borrowed time, telling her prophecies of her imminent death. She hasn't carried your burdens. And no offense, but you never experienced this. This was different. Without warning. Without reason. At the time she would least expect to be in danger. She never had time to prepare. Never had the chance to imagine the worst. You've been through more than a lot, Buffy. You've been through more than anyone in this world. But you never went through this."

After all this tense discussion Xander no longer felt up to going upstairs and talking to Willow. He left.

Back at the Magic Shop, Spike and Anya were discussing Spike's theory of life imitating literature. "Beowulf, that's a good one," Anya began. "I actually remember when people were still writing and rewriting that thing. There were some truly awful alternate endings, which thankfully never survived. Good story, for Scandinavians. Not as good as a Russian story, but then again what is?"

Spike was firmly committed to his tenuous intuition. "So where would Grendel go next? Where does he find his other eight victims?" And then inspiration. "By George, Eureka, I've bloody well got it!"

"Got what?," Anya wondered. She was not used to seeing Spike so enraptured by his own thoughts.

"Grendel will go to the Mead Hall!," Spike answered.

Anya laughed at the quaint expression. "Yes, of course Grendel will go to the Mead Hall. If this were a medieval Northern European village, which, if you look around, you'll notice it's not."

"I mean the Bronze," Spike explained. "That's our Mead Hall. It's where everyone gathers for nightly entertainments. And it's a perfect place to find men to devour." Spike felt elated to be in control. He grabbed Anya's arm, looked into her eyes, and told her as if the world depended on it "go to Buffy's. Tell her what this thing is. Tell her where it will be. And tell her how to kill it. She has to remove its right arm."

"My goodness you are becoming more and more like Giles every day," Anya joked. Spike was so high on his own inspiration he didn't even notice the insult. As Anya left, Connor entered. Now everything was falling into place for Spike.

"Steven, I have a very important job for you. Get in my car, we'll go to my flat and I'll explain there. Big night ahead for us." Spike then grabbed two swords and left with Connor.

When the two of them arrived at Spike's crypt, Clem was on the couch watching television. Connor was not known for being particularly tolerant of demons. "You evil thing!" he yelled at Clem. Then he took out his dagger and ran at him. Clem was severely frightened out of his wits.

Spike grabbed Connor when Connor was within arm's reach of Clem. "Steven, calm down. This is Clem. He's good. He's friendly. He can't harm a soul. He's a good friend of mine. And a good friend of Dawn's."

Mentioning her calmed Connor down a bit. Clem said to him "oh yeah, Dawn and I go way back. I used to babysit her. She's a great kid. And if you slice me into little bits, I bet she'll be very mad at you."

That was the last thing Connor wanted. He put away the knife and relaxed. Clem said "I'm eating Reeses Pieces. You can have some if you like." He held out the bag. Connor took a few. Sweet. Chocolatey. This was definitely Connor food. And any demon who gave him it couldn't be all that bad.

"Sorry about that," Connor said. "It's just that I don't meet many demons who don't want to kill me."

"Neither do I," Clem joked. "Kind demons. We're something of a minority within a minority. Just glad we sorted this out before one of us did something we would both regret. Say Spike, you find out anything about that new monster?"

Spike was in his element. Talking to people who hung on his every word. "Matter of fact I did. That's why I brought Steven here. It's a Grendel."

"Never heard of it," Clem added.

"Well, it's not a very common demon," Spike began. "It's something of a storybook monster come to life. Grendel's an ogre. He eats men. Real mean looking fellow. But I think we can kill him, just like Beowulf."

Connor had heard of this character from Holtz. "I think my father mentioned him. He was some ancient hero or something."

Spike, like the nerd he once was, gladly filled Connor in. "He was quite the bloke. Super powers. Mysterious birth. A human being, but also more than human. Comes to this little town beset by monsters. Kills the monsters. Oh, and he can hold his breath underwater for a really, really long time."

This all sounded familiar to Connor. That was because it sounded a lot like Connor's own story.

Anya quickly went to Buffy's house. She felt a personal responsibility for killing this thing before it killed anybody else. She entered without knocking and spread the news.

"So Buffy I take it you heard about the new monster in town. The one that's eating people."

"Heard about it? I saw it."

Anya wanted to make sure it was what Spike showed her from the book. "Walks upright, real ugly, really large right arm?"

"How'd you know?," Buffy wondered.

"Oh, just a hunch," Anya coyly explained. "Anyway, I have reason to believe this monster will be heading over to the Bronze tonight. So you might want to skedaddle and keep more people from being eaten." Buffy agreed, grabbed some weapons and along with Willow and Dawn got into Anya's car.

Xander was already at the Bronze. He did not know an ogre was about to show up. All he knew was that Spike would not show up onstage tonight, which was precisely why Xander was there. He wanted a nice, relaxing evening without having to watch a man he detested play rock god.

Of course, the only way to have a hope of enjoying a nice, relaxing evening in Sunnydale is to stay home, lock the doors, and bar the windows. Xander heard commotion around the front door. Grendel was making his big entrance. He threw aside the doorman and anyone else in his path. Those in the vicinity screamed and ran.

And then Xander saw the creature. He had seen plenty of monsters, many of which were much bigger than Grendel. But Grendel had a presence about him. When people laid eyes on him, they questioned whether there was really a God. Sure, he was scary-looking. But he was also really ugly, and not in the picturesque way most monsters are ugly. The skin was such a sickly color. The eyes were blank. They lacked the ferocious glare of a killer. This made Grendel's killings all the more frightening. Sure he was evil. But he didn't even seem to enjoy the hunt.

By the time Buffy and her friends arrived the scene people were running out of the Bronze and fleeing in every direction. Buffy knew Anya's hunch was right (of course it was Spike's hunch, but Buffy didn't know that). As she was about to enter through the front door, she ran into Xander as he ran out. "Buffy there's this thing and it's eaten two people and it's really, really scary. Not killed, eaten the people. Whole. Worse than anything I've seen and oh baby I've seen a lot!"

"Don't worry Xander, I'm on it," Buffy reassured her petrified friend. "Nothing I can't handle."

As Buffy entered Anya screamed out "remember the arm! You have to rip off its right arm!"

Buffy turned and looked at Anya in a confused and contemptuous manner. "The arm? I've never heard of a demon who dies when you remove its arm. That's just ridiculous."

Buffy entered prepared to reacquaint herself with the creature see saw that morning. There were a few scattered patrons who had not been able to flee. They were against the walls, barricaded behind upturned tables. Grendel was approaching them, closing in for his final kills.

Buffy ran up from behind Grendel. She leaped in the air and hit him square in the back with a flying kick. He hit the wall, thankfully at a spot where there were no people. Buffy grabbed him from behind and threw Grendel backwards. He hit the ground in a sitting position and slid about ten feet along the floor.

"Remember me?," Buffy mockingly asked. "You know, the girl you ran away from. Well now there's no place to run to. Any last words?"

Grendel stood up and looked at Buffy. He didn't move. He didn't look angry, or scared, or even energetic. He just waited for Buffy to make her move. All he did was breath, slowly and deeply and loudly. Grendel was definitely a mouth breather.

"Not the talkative type, I see," Buffy joked. She approached Grendel and kicked him in the chest. No reaction. She attempted to kick him in the head. Grendel, who usually slouched, arched his back and neck to elude the blow. It became apparent that when he stood up straight he was about eight feet tall, two feet taller than when he stood in his usual bad posture.

After dodging Buffy's kick, Grendel swung his right arm round. The enormous limb struck Buffy in the head. The force of the blow knocked her into the air and ten feet backwards. She hit one of the steel poles which supported the balcony. The pole snapped in two.

This sight almost caused Grendel to smile. It seemed to put a twinkle in his eyes. He hit Buffy with a left hook, sending her ten feet to the side, but she managed to stay on her feet. Grendel came up and swung his mighty right paw at Buffy once again. This time she ducked, and Grendel's arm shattered another of the steel poles supporting the balcony.

Buffy quickly ran out from under the balcony to escape the inevitable. With these supports gone, the front section of the balcony fell on Grendel. He hardly seemed to notice. He shook off the debris and made his way towards Buffy once again.

Then he growled. It was the same growl Buffy heard the previous night. But this time from a few feet away. The growl echoed throughout the club. Xander, Anya, Willow and Dawn, watching from inside the club but at a safe distance from the combat, felt their bones rattle.

Buffy and Grendel stared each other down on the Bronze's dance floor. Grendel showed her his moves. He went down on all fours and leaped at her again and again, bounding across the floor and swinging at her with both arms while growling in an attempt to intimidate her. Buffy eluded his first few hops, then decided she should jump onto the elevated stage, making his attacks moot.

Grendel stood up straight once again. With the added elevation of the stage, Buffy was actually slightly above him. She jumped over him, did a backflip, and landed behind him. Grendel turned, and Buffy kicked for his head.

Grendel ducked and went down on all fours again. He plowed into Buffy, taking her to the ground. He tried to pin her down and bite her with his long, sharp teeth. His head was inches from hers. Buffy managed to wiggle free and escape from Grendel's clutches.

Spike and Connor had arrived at the Bronze. They burst in, saw Buffy engaged with Grendel, and knew they were a few minutes late. Connor eagerly approached, trying to get close to the creature. Spike followed, but a few steps behind. He was a little frightened. Not as frightened as Xander, Willow, Anya or Dawn, but not fearless like Buffy or Connor.

Grendel led with a right, as he was wont to do. Buffy ducked and kicked him in the knee. Grendel lowered his head in pain. Buffy punched it three times, pulled out a wooden stake, and plunged it through his heart. This did nothing. Grendel hit her on top of her head with a left, driving Buffy into the ground. Then he blasted her with a right uppercut, which sent her flying into a wall.

"You have to go for the right arm!," Spike yelled out. "That's the only way to kill it!"

"You too? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!" After making this comment Buffy was walloped with another right hook."

"The bloody arm! Just go for the bloody arm! I mean what else are you planning to do? Stake it again?," Spike yelled back.

By now Buffy was willing to give it a try, no matter how lame it sounded. Grendel swung another right. Buffy grabbed the arm, or more accurately absorbed it with her body while putting her arms around it, holding on for dear life. When she got a good grip, Buffy twisted the arm slightly and pulled it back. Grendel struggled to regain control of his limb. But Buffy was too strong. As Grendel struggled, he fell to the ground.

Buffy pulled and pulled, until she started hearing his bones creak. Grendel let out a scream. Not a growl, but a high-pitched scream, a cry of agony. Finally, Buffy pulled the arm away from Grendel's body. The body and the arms vanished into dust.

Xander, Anya, Willow and Dawn slowly moved towards Buffy. They were still a bit shaken by the sight of Grendel. Buffy felt invigorated. "I never knew I'd enjoy arm wrestling so much. What can I say? Find me a demon, and I'll find a way to kill it." (Actually Spike found the way to kill it. But that would have ruined Buffy's victory buzz.)

Connor and Spike left. "I'm sorry about that, Steven. I built you up for a big fight, and now it's just a big letdown." Right then the two of them heard shrieks from the West.

"What was that?," Connor asked Spike.

Spike thought for a second. What comes after Grendel? And then it hit him. "Grendel's mum!" The two of then leaped into Spike's car and followed the noises.

So Connor would get his big fight. "Did you that sound was Grendel's mother? That thing has a mother?"

"Everything has a mother, Steven. After Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel's mum comes to town looking for revenge. So Beowulf kills her as well." This did make sense in this situation. Grendel had failed to eat ten men. So not enough vengeance had occurred when he died. Now his mother's coming to avenge her son's death and to complete the vengeance he was supposed to wreak.

Spike felt he needed to warn Connor. "One thing I should tell you. In the story, Grendel's mum is a dragon. Don't ask me how a dragon gives birth to an ogre, but that's how its written. Just to prepare you for what we might find."

Connor had a completely unrelated question he had been meaning to ask Spike. "Buffy doesn't seem to like you around. And every time I mention your name to Dawn she gets upset. Why don't they like you?"

This was a complicated and torturous matter. So Spike gave the short and sweet answer. "Me and Buffy, we used to kind of go out. We had a very painful breakup. It left a lot of bitterness between us." Connor accepted the pat response. 

Spike followed the noises all the way to the beach. Grendel's mom had emerged from the sea. She was calling out for the one who killed her boy. She was thirty feet long. Her tail was ten feet, her body twelve feet, and her serpentine head eight feet long.

Spike was a bit shaken by the sight. He had never seen a dragon, and now here he was only a few feet away from one. Connor was perfectly cool and calm. He saw nothing here which surprised or unnerved him.

Connor pulled out his sword. He stood just beyond the reach of the dragon's head. He moved side to side, gauging the beast lateral movement, and the speed with which it moved its head and neck. It started to step in his direction, which was what Connor wanted. He shuffled to the side, seeing how fast the beast could turn and swivel. Against this creature, he felt at home.

Spike approached the dragon from the side and rear. Its mighty tail struck him in the chest and sent Spike about sixty feet out into the waves. Spike stood up in the water. "Bugger all! That bleeding tail!," he growled. It may not have been the wisest decision, but Spike was determined to make the beast pay.

Connor raised his sword and swung it up at the dragon's head in an almost playful manner. Its head swooped down and outward trying to catch him. But he was too fast. Connor toyed with the beast as if playing tag with it. He stood just within its range. When Grendel's mom reached out to devour Connor, he did a one-handed backflip, using the hand which did not hold his sword. This forced the dragon to take a few more steps out away from the water.

Now Connor was ready to hurt this creature, to go toe-to-toe with it. The dragon reached out its jaws to bite Connor. Instead of dodging, Connor swung his sword, cutting the dragon before the dragon could cut him. He left a noticeable gash on the beast's right cheek.

Slowly but determinedly, Spike approached the dragon from behind, all the while thinking "watch the bloody tail, watch the bloody tail." He neared it. And he watched. And when the tail swung rightwards, in the direction of Spike, he ducked and hit the sand. Spike then quickly rose. The tail swung back leftwards. Spike held his sword in its path and slashed as the tail closed in upon him. He struck a blow and fell to the ground.

When Spike got up, he noticed he had severed the back three feet of Grendel's mom's tail. He was elated. "Ha! Who's laughing now dragon lady! Maybe your friends never told you, but nobody messes with Spike without paying a price!"

Buffy and friends had left the Bronze. Now they too heard the horrible braying from the West. "Something tells me that's not just a wolf," Xander reckoned. They got in their cars and followed the terrible beastly sound.

Connor was by now ready to finish the job. He ran under the vampire's neck, diving under its outstretched jaws. Then he leaped in the air and thrust his sword through the dragon's mouth and out its skull. Connor's feet were a good ten feet off the ground when he thrust his sword into the dragon. Spike saw this move, and was speechless.

Connor fell back to the sand. The dragon was now severely wounded, but extremely furious and still quite dangerous. Spike stayed about twenty feet away.

Connor looked straight up into the dragon's eyes, as if taunting the great beast. The head swooped down, mouth wide open. Connor just stood there, looking into the dragon's mouth. At the last moment, he leaped ten feet to the left, just as the dragon's jaws were closing and about the rip off his head.

Connor now stood perpendicular to the beast's head and neck. He soared high into the air. He did a forward flip, and chopped the dragon's head off in midair. He landed, smiled, and thrust his sword into the severed head which had fallen to the sand.

Spike was more than impressed. Beowulf had also killed Grendel's mom. But Beowulf didn't leap fifteen feet in the air and sever the dragon's head while performing a summersault. Spike always thought Connor was special. Now Spike knew he had been wrong. Connor was more than special. He was so much more than that. He couldn't explain why Connor could perform such feats. He didn't even try.

A few minutes later Buffy, Xander, Willow, Dawn and Anya arrived on the scene. By now Connor had reverted to full Quor Toth mode. As the one who slew the beast, he was entitled to the first tasting. Buffy and friends got out of their cars and saw Connor pulling strips of raw meat out the the dragon's neck and devouring them. They didn't know what was more shocking - a boy eating raw meat, or the fact that this raw meat came out of what looked like the corpse of a dragon.

Xander tried to break the ice. "Wow! Sorry, I mean, Wow! I know you didn't come home for dinner tonight Steven. But I had no idea you were this hungry! I guess we can eat right here. Just let me make a fire. A little barbequed giant lizard dinosaur. I'm sure it tastes just like chicken."

Connor had gone a bit sub lingual. Blood covered his lips and dripped from his chin. "My kill. You eat when I have finished. It is my right."

Xander tried to rationalize what to him and his friends was an irrational sight. "Sure. I get that! You're the hunter. This is your kill. I'm way cool with that. But, see, where I grew up we had this thing called fire. And we put the meat in the fire before we ate it."

Connor really wasn't listening to Xander's ramblings. Soon he filled his stomach and walked away from the dragon. He was drawn to the crashing waves, to the sea. He walked out to where the water was up to his waist, and stood there, looking westward into the vastness of the ocean. He splashed the water on his face, and drank some of it. Connor hadn't noticed how salty sea water was before this. It went down well with the taste of the raw dragon meat which lingered in his mouth.

Buffy saw Spike. "Oh look what we have here. If it isn't Steven's valet."

Spike was holding his sword, which was covered in dragon's blood from when Spike used it to sever the end of the dragon's tail. He held it up in the air, as if considering attacking Buffy. He glared at her. What did she know? Without him, she would never had killed Grendel. Without him, she would never have arrived in time to save the men in the Bronze. Spike just walked away, got in his car, and drove home.

Willow, Anya and Xander were checking out the great beast. "You ever see one of these?," Willow asked Anya.

"I've seen things that looked like this," Anya answered. "But I've never seen one of them dead."

"So this is a dragon?," Xander wondered. "This is a real, live, well, formerly live, dragon? In the flesh? On our beach? Killed by Steven?"

"Yes. That's really the only way to explain this scene," Anya concluded. "You've met vampire slayers. Now you're living with a dragon slayer."

"Steven the dragon slayer," Willow added. "That sounds very romantic and dashing, like a fairy tale. But he kind of ruined the fairy tale mood by eating the dragon raw. Nothing at all romantic about that."

Dawn ran out into the water to talk to Steven. He turned to face her. "Steven you are amazing! You did this, this, uh, I don't even know what to call this. Except amazing! Your the most amazing guy I ever met. I don't know what else to tell you."

Connor knew exactly what he wanted to tell Dawn. He had taken a piece of string, put it through the dragon's two largest teeth on it, and tied the string to make a necklace. He took it off his neck and showed it to Dawn.

"These are from the beast I killed. I give this to you as sign of how much I honor you. I love you Dawn. I love you more than anything in this world." Connor put the necklace over her head and onto her neck.

Dawn was touched. This was the best thing anyone had ever said to her. "You love me! Ooh! That is so sweet!" And then Dawn put her arms around Connor and planted her lips upon his.

Buffy saw this from the shore. Normally, she would have found Connor's and Dawn's first kiss to be adorable. Especially in this setting. At night, under the moon, with the waves crashing into them. But under these particular circumstances, she found it disgusting.

"Oh no Dawn!," Buffy yelled out to her sister. "Don't you know what he just put in that mouth!" Dawn heard, but didn't care. Besides, Buffy knew what it was like to kiss a guy with blood on his breath. Who was she to criticize?

To Connor, kissing Dawn for the first time felt like some out-of-body experience. Like he had died and gone to Heaven. He had waited for this moment with such burning anticipation that when it came he was lucky he did not faint.

When the kiss ended and Dawn let go of Connor, he did faint, straight back into the water. She dove into the water and grabbed the woozy boy. She pulled him back up. Connor stood back up and apologized. "Sorry. Didn't mean to do that. It's just been such an amazing night. I'm just so happy to be here with you."

Now Dawn felt a little weak in the knees. "You really know how to make a girl feel special," she told him, and kissed him again. Their teeth were chattering. She told him "Steven, th-the water's a bit cold. Whadya say we get back on dry land."

They headed out of the water together. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Anya watched them approach. They all found the long wet kiss completely and totally disgusting. But watching them walk out of the waves, they had to admit to themselves that these wide-eyed kids looked adorable together. They all managed to smile. Even Buffy. "My little sis has her first boyfriend."

"What is it about killing monsters that brings kids together?," Xander wondered. "I remember when I first kissed my first girlfriend. The basement. The maggots. It was magical."

Everyone was getting nostalgic. "It really brings back memories," Willow added. Then she thought a bit. "Well, sort of. I mean, yes, my first boyfriend was known to occasionally have a taste for raw meat. But that was never a turn-on for me."

Even Anya tried to sound warm and fuzzy. But warm and fuzzing coming from Anya's mouth doesn't exactly sound warm and fuzzy. "It's so magical. Her own knight in shining armor. I know he'll treat her good. He better. Because if he doesn't, I can really, really hurt him."

It had been quite a night. Connor and Dawn walked towards Buffy and her friends. Behind Buffy and her friends was the corpse of a thirty foot long dragon. At that moment nobody noticed the dragon. Connor would remember this night forever. But he would remember almost nothing about the dragon. To him, killing a dragon wasn't special. Locking lips with his beloved was.

Back at his crypt, Spike sat on his couch, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. On the television was a Steve McQueen movie. Spike looked at the actor as if he was looking at what he wanted to become. The sound was turned off. The stereo was playing Frank Sinatra's "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning:"

"When your lonely heart has learned its lesson,

you'd be hers if only she would call.

In the wee small hours of the morning,

that's the time you miss her most of all."

Spike dropped a fleck of ash from his cigarette into his shot glass. The whiskey ignited. Spike held onto the glass and downed the flaming beverage in a single gulp. He would show Buffy soon enough.


	5. Chapter Five: Hallelujah

Dawn and Connor go to the Homecoming Dance. This being Sunnydale, something will probably go wrong. But only Spike knows what will go wrong, yet he's not willing to tell Buffy. Xander and Willow go to the dance as "chaperones" and meet Dawn's friends, who remind them of people from their past.

Connor and Dawn emerged from the movie theater. It was their first conventional date.

"That farm on that desert planet. That reminded me of where I grew up," Connor told Dawn.

"You had Sand People in Utah?," a somewhat confused Dawn asked.

"No. Of course not," Connor responded. (The things he faced on Quor Toth were much scarier than Sand People.) "The isolation. The sandy plains. The sense that you're the only people on the planet. That's why it reminded me of home."

Connor here was testing how much of his actual experiences he could mention without giving away the truth. He was fortunate because there were parts of Utah which vaguely fit his description.

"Did you like it where you grew up?," Dawn wondered.

"I did. Everything was simple. I knew what I had to do to get by each day. No complications. No confusion. And I always had my father to look out for me." Once again Connor's vagueness allowed him to make his unprecedented childhood sound positively pedestrian, like he was nothing more than a 21st century Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Dawn tried to relate. "I imagine you miss your father. It was really tough when I lost my mother. Sometimes I wondered if I was strong enough to go on without her."

Connor agreed. "I felt the same way when my father was taken from me. Without him, everything seemed scary and strange. I just wondered, without a purpose. Then I met you. And I realized the world could be wonderful."

Connor really knew how to compliment a girl. His constant, worshipful praising of Dawn might have grown tiresome to many. But not to Dawn. She really couldn't get enough of this boy's attention.

They were at the corner of the block. Dawn turned to face Connor. She held both his hands with both of hers. She playfully moved her arms forward so Connor's hands were behind his back. She decided to bait him for more compliments. Like I said, she really couldn't get enough.

"So the girl in the movie, she was really beautiful. You thought she was beautiful, right?"

It was like batting practice. Dawn put the ball over the plate, and Connor knocked it out of the ballpark. "I guess she was pretty. It's just that, whenever I look at any other girl, all I notice is that she's not you."

Dawn smiled and kissed Connor. Then she asked him something she had been thinking about for the past few days. "So Steven, next Saturday, at my school, there's going to be this Homecoming Dance. You wanna go with me?"

"I'll go with you anywhere," Connor told Dawn. She smiled again and kissed him again. Then Connor heard something. It was a woman's scream from about 200 yards away. Connor dashed to the noise. A puzzled Dawn followed and struggled to keep up.

In a nearby alley, a man was attempting to rape a woman at knifepoint. Connor galloped towards him. Connor was not big, but when in pursuit he could look as intimidating as a large cat running down its dinner. The man heard Connor's steps. He turned and saw him. He tried to run away.

Connor quickly caught up to him and with a leaping kick in the back knocked the man face first into the asphalt. He flipped him over and pummelled the man with several punches to the face. Then he stopped. He realized this fellow wasn't a vampire. Connor pulled out his knife.

Dawn had caught up to him. She grabbed his wrist. "No Steven! That's a person!"

"I know it's a person," Connor explained. "I'm just going to give him something to remember me by."

Connor planned to cut off one of his ears. Dawn thought Connor was going to cut off an entirely different body part. So did the man on the ground.

"Steven please don't do that. You don't have to cut that off. That's just wrong. That's not how we do things around here. The police take care of these kinds of things."

Connor thought about this. Who was he to disagree with Dawn? So he put the knife away. Then he picked up the man and threw him face first into a brick wall, knocking him unconscious. "Fine with me," he told Dawn.

The woman Connor had saved was very grateful. She was also a little scared of Connor. She slowly approached and said "thank you. Thank you so much for what you did." Then she ran away.

Connor put his arm around Dawn and walked with her out of the alley as if nothing had happened. "So what's a Homecoming Dance?," he asked her.

"So how was the big date?," Buffy asked Dawn the next morning.

"It was great. Steven was great. He's so sweet."

"So I take it Anakin liked the movie?," Buffy joked.

"What was that?," Dawn responded.

"Oh come on, like you haven't noticed. Mystery boy. Incredibly powerful. All intense and passionate. Prone to violence."

Dawn did not like this comparison. "You cut that out! Steven's nothing like that. You don't even know him. You've never even talked to him. And that's not fair! I mean, you're also prone to violence."

"Sorry, I mean, take a pill, Dawny. It was a joke. Forget it. Steven's great. I'm glad you're happy with him."

"Oh, and I forget to tell you. Steven's going with me to the Homecoming Dance this Saturday!"

Buffy liked the sound of this. "Cool, your big coming out party. Get to show him off to all your friends. Get to make all the popular girls jealous."

"Wowie! I hadn't thought about that!," Dawn excitedly responded.

"So Dawn wants me to go with her to this Homecoming thing," Connor told Xander that same morning.

"The Homecoming Dance? You two are going to the Homecoming Dance?"

"That's what I think Dawn called it. Do you know what it is?"

"Oh of course. I forgot. You didn't exactly go to high school so all this stuff is new to you. Basically a bunch of teenagers get dressed up, hang out, move to the music. Like going to the Bronze, except a lot more expensive."

"I haven't been to the Bronze. Well, not when other people were there. It's loud and crowded. I don't like that."

"Oh, you haven't?," Xander responded. "I should take you there. So you can know what it's like, get used to it. I guess Dawn's kind of like your girlfriend now. And when you have a girlfriend, you have to go to stuff like dances with her. It can sometimes even be kind of fun."

Then Xander thought for a second about wardrobe. "Say Steven, I take it you don't have any formal wear. You know, suits, ties, that sort of thing."

Connor stared blankly at Xander. After all, his clothing had always been kind of sub-casual. Xander tried to explain. "See, at these dances, you have to get dressed up. You know, wear fancy clothes, tuxedoes. Okay, I take your silence to mean you have no idea what I'm talking about. No biggie. I'll take care of it for you. Lemme think."

A few seconds later Xander had the solution. "So I figure you're a little too small to fit into any of my stuff. How bout I buy you some clothes of your own? Perfect! I'll see you here a little after five this afternoon, take you to a store, get everything taken care of."

Anya still felt a bit guilty about the four men Grendel killed the week before. Spike tried to identify.

"The whole thing that happened last week, you can't blame yourself for that. You had no way of knowing."

"That doesn't mean it wasn't my fault," Anya responded.

"Well in a way it wasn't," Spike rebutted. "You weren't the one who killed them. You didn't want to kill them. You had no intent to cause harm."

"The sad thing is, they died because I had no intent, because I had not caused harm," Anya countered.

"So that's the lesson you take from this?," Spike asked. "You're ready and rarin' to hurt you some men, get back on the vengeful horse?"

"I've been ready. That's not the problem. Besides, this guy comes only once. So I don't have to worry about this sort of thing happening again, right?"

"That sort of thing will not happen again," Spike assured her. But during his research Spike had discovered what would happen if she went twelve months without performing vengeance. But he didn't want to tell her this.

Anya explained her mindset. "I could go out and give some woman vengeance, just to prove I still had it in me. Sure. But then once the word gets out that Anya does it for free, no one will be willing to pay me. I'm not going to condemn myself to a life of being the slave of scorned women everywhere. I mean, would they do their jobs for free?"

Spike wanted to alter the subject of this conversation. "Anya, do you ever feel guilty for what you did to some men in the past?"

Anya chuckled. "Guilty? Why should I feel guilty? They were the ones who were guilty. I gave them the punishment they deserved. I mean, does a judge feel guilty about all the men he sends to prison?"

Then Anya realized where Spike was coming from. "Oh. Oh-ooh. I get ya. You want someone to identify with you. Cute. Real cute. But you killed the innocent. I mean, at least one or two meals a day for 100 years, that's, let me see, carry the two, carry the one. That's tens of thousands of innocent victims! Wow, talk about guilt. I feel bad enough for causing four men to die. Now you, you have to multiply that by like 15,000!"

"Thanks Anya. Spending all this time around you, I wonder why I haven't slit both me wrists yet. I was just trying to help. You didn't have to turn everything around to being about me. But if that's what you want, if that's what helps, fine! Wanna know why I don't break down? Don't fall into the fetal position every couple hours and cry my eyes out? It's cause we can't change the past, and not a lick ah good comes from worrying about it."

"That's a nice way of leaving your conscience at the door," Anya quipped. "Don't worry, be happy. Is that your secret to happiness?"

Spike was upset with Anya's failure to take him seriously. "That's not what I meant! What I mean to say is that the only way to make up for the past is by doing good in the future. You can't bring those four guys back. But you can help other people, prevent them from dying. You get it?"

"Oh, I get it. This is the Angel approach!," Anya concluded.

"Oh, bloody hell, grow up!," Spike yelled back. "This is about us. It has nothing to do with that sad sack wanker! He's in bleeding limbo, cursed bloodsucker and all that jazz. He has no choice. We're human, we've gone all the way, we have a choice. We can be happy, have everything we want. We can choose to help. Not because it's our duty, but because it makes us happy. It lets us know we still have some power."

"Helping people is a power trip? So Mother Theresa wasn't this nice meek saint, she was a megalomaniac or something?," Anya wondered.

"Well I never met her, so how could I know?," Spike answered. "But don't you think she got a little satisfaction about all the attention she received, all these people telling her how wonderful she was? All I can say myself is that, yes, I'm sorry, but helping people is a little bit of a power trip for me. And I'm sure it is for you. Nothing wrong with that. Just the way people are. I mean, if we didn't get a little buzz from helping others, why would anybody risk their lives to save someone else? The whole world would bloody well fall apart."

At this point a man in his early thirties with longish black hair entered the store. "Hi sir, can I help you find something?," Anya dutifully asked.

"Yes. I'm looking for an Acacia crystal," he answered. "Also, perhaps about four ounces of finely ground magnesium sulfide powder."

"Well, it's great to meet a customer who knows what he wants. I'll go get you that crystal," Anya told the man. She looked at her stockboy and said "Spike, I think there's some magnesium powder in the back room. Could you go find it and weigh it for this nice customer?" Spike mumbled something under his breath and went to find the powder.

Anya pulled out a small crystal for the man. "These are very popular as amulets," she told him.

The customer was not satisfied. "I'm sorry if I misled you. I mean a large crystal. A little bigger than my fist."

"I'm the one who's sorry," Anya apologized, knowing the customer was always right. "I'll go see if we have one. Sorry to mistake you for some New Age dilettante. It's nice to meet a real aficionado."

Anya did find a large enough crystal. She had never sold a rock like this. What to charge, what to charge? She checked the wholesale order forms and noticed she bought the item for $50. So she priced accordingly.

"Sir, is this what you were looking for?"

"Yes, yes exactly."

"They're quite rare. Hard to get a hold of. I'll make you a little deal. Usually this retails for 500, but since I like you I'll let you have it for 250."

The man readily agreed and paid. In cash. Spike came to the counter with a bag containing the four ounces of magnesium powder. Anya wanted to test how much she could soak this man for. "The powder will be $50 extra."

He paid without complaint, once again in cash. Anya was thrilled. She never had a $300 sale before.

Wednesday night Xander took Connor shopping for a tuxedo and some decent shoes. Thursday night Xander took Connor to the Bronze. The Breeders were playing that night. A great band, back on the road after a very long time on hiatus. And best of all, no Spike.

So Xander was very surprised when five minutes after he and Connor arrived, Spike's band took the stage. At the last minute they had been penciled in as the opening act.

Spike used the occasion to introduce his original material. He figured that now that he was sharing the bill with an important band he couldn't get by on covers alone. Sure he was nervous. I mean, before all he had done was play versions of other people's great songs. Now he had to present some of his own, far more mediocre material. But Spike was nothing if not a ballsy risktaker.

He began with a loud driving pop-punk number called "Where To Go," whose verse melody was very similar to the verse melody from Cheap Trick's "Surrender:"

"Summer day breeds summer night breeds darkness until dawn.

Gazing at the sun and stars though one is always gone.

Only to all weakness did my mind ever stay true.

I was far too busy wasting my own time to ever care about you."

Xander was crestfallen. Had Spike taken over his only hangout? Connor didn't seem so upset. He had heard that Spike was some sort of a musician, but had never seen him perform. He didn't know much about music, but he kind of liked what he saw.

Xander noticed Willow in the crowd. He said hello. "I tell ya Will, I came here to see a really great band. I had no idea it was amateur night. So did you know they were the opening act?"

"Zooey called me last night. She was really excited. I tell ya something, Spike's new material's not so bad. Not bad at all, really."

Most of the audience was already familiar with Spike, so they didn't treat him as rudely as they would treat most opening acts. When the first song finished the audience applauded. Spike immediately began the next song, since he knew people don't like opening acts to dawdle. This song was called "To No End." It had begun as a ballad Spike thought was too sappy for him to sing, so he rearranged it as a mid-tempo power-pop number in triplet time:

"All alone here, wanting you near,

wonder where I went wrong.

We once burned like fire, but extinguished desire,

bliss can, never last, that long.

The past stands before with no will to defend,

so I go, ain't it so, to no end."

This seemed to go well. No one seemed to mind the piano solo in the bridge was largely lifted from the Doors' "The Crystal Ship." In case anyone minded this somewhat tender song, Spike followed it up with two loud and fast numbers which had more or less been put together by the band the previous day. Then they finished with an abridged ten minute version of the Velvet Underground noise epic "Sister Ray." Like any good opening act, they left before the audience got sick of them. Like a great opening act, they left while the audience still liked them and wanted more.

Several miles away, the man who had bought the crystal and the powder at the Magic Shop was with three other men. They donned purple robes and stood around a fire inside a stone circle. The man dropped some of the magnesium powder on the flame, turning it green. Then he placed the crystal directly into the fire. "Tonight begins the preparation. When it is complete, the power and the glory shall be ours, forever."

On Friday afternoon, when Dawn came home from school, Buffy had something to show her. "How would you like to wear this to the dance?," Buffy asked her.

"Buffy, it's beautiful," Dawn said with a gasp. It was a simple and lovely white dress. But Dawn took a closer look at it. "Wait a minute. This is the dress you wore when you died, isn't it?"

"I was only dead a few seconds. And afterwards I had it dry cleaned. Twice. I swear. Good as new."

"No Buffy, that's just gross. Hand-me-downs are one thing, but I'm not wearing something someone else died in. Why can't I buy something new?"

Buffy had a few good reasons. "Where shall I begin? First off, it's not like I have a few hundred dollars on me to blow on a new dress. You know we don't have that much money to burn. And second of all, you're banned from all the stores in town where I could buy you a dress even if I did have the money."

Dawn was not deterred. "You have a car. I mean, we can drive ten miles and find a store where I haven't stolen anything. There's no rule that says we can only shop in this one little town. As for the price, I know it will set us back, but think of it as my Christmas and birthday present."

Buffy was skeptical. "Can I get that in writing, signed in blood, so that I can show you it when you're begging for something in December?"

"Since when did this family do blood oaths?," Dawn joked. "Buffy please. I want this night to be perfect. It's my first dance, with my first boyfriend. And Xander's buying Steven a tux."

"Steven in formal wear?," Buffy asked. "That's really a departure from his usual fashion choice - which dirty t-shirt goes best with which pair of dirty jeans. Steven in a tux - that I really have to see to believe."

Dawn pressed on. "So you see why this is special. I mean, he goes to all that trouble, and I show up in some old cadaver dress. It would mean so much to me."

Buffy gave in. "Fine, I'll buy you a new dress. You'll be the belle of the ball. But don't complain when you're having cat food for dinner next month."

On this Friday night Spike's band played at a frat house at the local college. They shelved the new stuff, and played it safe. Lots of guaranteed-to-please covers. Walking home, Spike past a large rock which appeared to be covered with some sort of writing. Spike took a closer look, and realized it was a runic inscription. 

As a teenager who loved ancient Germanic legends, with their exciting monsters and heroes, Spike had learned which runic symbols corresponded to which sounds and letters. It was a code he and some of his like-minded friends used to write secret messages. Spike could read the characters in the moonlight. They appeared to be mostly what he and his friends had written – nothing more than English words spelled out in the runic alphabet.

There were mentions of "the order of the black stone" and "the keys to the kingdom" and "glory glory hallelujah, glory glory hallelujah" and "glory becomes us." It was meaningless graffiti, if not for one word Spike glimpsed: Gardar. In large characters near the center of the stone were the words "Gardar shall rise." Spike knew he had heard this word before. He was sure it was some sort of demon.

Anya was surprised when Spike arrived into work an hour early on Saturday morning. "We stopped being on Daylight Savings time a week ago," she told him. Why else would Spike be early, on a Saturday, the morning after a gig?

"Anya can I use your computer to go online?," he asked her.

"So you came in early to download porn?," she responded.

"No Anya, of course not. Come on," Spike told her.

"You sissy," Anya jokingly added.

Spike tried to explain. "I actually have some serious business to attend to. I found out last night about a demon which may soon come here. I just need to do a little research."

Gardar was easy to find. There were numerous pages which mentioned that he was a "courier demon," whatever that meant. This wasn't much help. Then Spike tried "Order of the Black Stone," which had appeared in the inscription. Spike found lots of organizations which seemed to have nothing to do with demons.

So he was stymied. Then he thought of "glory glory hallelujah." He had heard that somewhere else. He then remembered it was in some song. Then he remembered the song: "Battle Hymn of the Republic," also known as "John Brown's Body."

Why Spike knew this was an interesting story in itself. He saw The Clash play in New York in 1979. When introducing the song "English Civil War," Joe Strummer told the audience "this is a song written by your forefathers. And not a bad little one at that." "English Civil War" was a rewrite of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

Spike was intrigued. He found an album of old Civil War songs with "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" on it. He found the traditional rendition didn't measure up to The Clash's version. And most of the other songs on the album were old-timey numbers he didn't care for. But "John Brown's Body" was on that album, which was why Spike remembered it. The Clash always believed they could help save the world. Spike was about to prove them right.

When Spike did a compound search for "John Brown's Body" and "Order of the Black Stone" and "Gardar" he found only one page. It was for some occult organization. From what they said on the site, they appeared to be men with no lives who played too much "Dungeons and Dragons" as kids. But Spike soon realized that beneath the playful fantasies this group knew their stuff.

On this site were posted what read like worshipful paeans to "Gloriosis," as if this were some god. Actually, it was the name of a god Spike knew personally. Then he put it all together: keys to the kingdom; glory becomes us; Gardar the courier demon. Gardar was going to bring these men Glory's key. Gardar was coming – after Dawn!

Spike's heart raced, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He left the computer and went into the backroom to record inventory and to think over what he just learned. He soon realized he needed to know when Gardar was coming.

While Anya was busy with customers, Spike snuck back into her office to use her computer. He looked at the site some more. Found out what the "black stone" was. It was an Acacia crystal, one which "shall go black on the third night inside the green flame." These men had gone right under their noses! And to top it off, they published everything for the world to see. This was arrogance bordering on stupidity.

In their defense, it did seem safe on their part to assume that no one would catch them before they pulled off their big score. And the web page did offer them a way to contact a few denizens of the occult, who no doubt would ridicule their pretensions and predictions. But after they succeeded, they could brag and boast to these naysayers. Basically, they needed an audience. There's no point in doing something great if you don't have an audience watching.

So it appeared Gardar would be appearing on the third night. Since the crystal was bought Thursday afternoon, that would be tonight. After the show Thursday, Willow told Spike that Dawn and Steven were going to a big dance on Saturday. What perfectly horrible timing, Spike thought. Of all the nights a demon could come after Dawn.

Spike was now torn by conflicting desires. Of course he wanted to save Dawn. But of course he didn't want to ruin her big night. If he alerted Dawn to Gardar's coming he would ruin her night. And furthermore, that would mean Buffy would be involved. He used his knowledge to help Buffy kill Grendel and to help Connor kill Grendel's mom. And Buffy didn't seem the least bit thankful. Spike had had enough of her ridicule. He desperately wanted to show her what he was capable of. And tonight offered the perfect opportunity.

He had to know more about this Gardar. He checked some of Anya's demon books. It was about as big as a large human. Big, but beatable.

Spike had to do this without Buffy. But he didn't want to do it alone. The only people he knew who were sufficiently out of the Scooby loop to help him were Clem and Anya. Not the greatest of fighting companions, but Spike knew they would give their all.

Spike called Clem and told him to come to the store after it closed at six. Then Spike broke the news to Anya and Clem. They were petrified. Then Spike told them his plan, the one without Buffy. They thought Spike had gone mad. To take on such a powerful demon, with so much at stake, without the Slayer. That was lunacy. By doing so Spike was risking his own life, as well as Dawn's.

Spike tried to explain his reasons. "I expected this reaction. It is crazy. It is irresponsible. But if we tell Buffy, we will ruin this night for Dawn. That will be assured. If we don't tell Buffy, there is a chance everything will work out perfectly. Dawn and Steven will have the time of their life. We will kill Gardar. All will be right with the world."

"Yes, there is a chance all will go right," Clem explained. "But there is a far, far bigger chance everything will turn out all wrong. You say you want what's best for Dawn. But how is gambling with her life what's best for Dawn?"

No Spike pulled out all the emotional tricks he had up his sleeve. "Ever since Dawn came into being, she has had to live in fear for her life. And for almost all of that time, she has been helpless to protect herself. She has felt like she doesn't belong. And with everything she's been put through, can you blame her? Being alive is not enough. Life without joy and ecstasy is nothing more than punishment.

"We have the opportunity to do something magical tonight. We can make it so that for at least one night Dawn doesn't have to live in fear. She doesn't have to worry about someone or something punishing her merely because she exists. One night of the innocence she has never been privileged to know."

"That's beautiful Spike," Anya told him. "But it's reckless beyond reason. It's just not worth it."

Spike now let his friends know there was no turning back. "Now I expected that by now both of you would still be wanting to tell the Slayer our little secret. There's just one problem: I haven't told you where Gardar will rise. Buffy would find him, but not before I do. And if either of you leaves my sight, I will go to where Gardar will rise. And when he rises, I won't put up a fight. I'll let him tear me limb from limb. Buffy will find him and kill him and save Dawn. But you walk out of here and you've signed my death warrant."

Clem was worried. "I'm sorry Spike but this is just completely nuts. I really do not want to sign any suicide pacts. This choice you present us with, it's sick, it's just evil. Either we condemn you do death, or we condemn you and ourselves to death. Please Spike. I know you. You're a good guy. Think this over. Don't do something we'll all regret."

Spike grabbed Anya's wrist and Clem's wrist. He wanted them to know he wasn't going to let them leave his side. He wanted them to look into his eyes, to see that while he may be crazy, he was also determined.

Spike made his intentions perfectly clear. "I know it's a hard choice. I want it to be the hardest choice you have ever made in your entire lives. But realize that you have no choice at all. There is only one course of action which will not result in tragedy. You help me fight Gardar. We kill him. We all live. Everything turns out peachy. You play it safe. You go to the Slayer. You'll never be able to forgive yourselves."

Anya looked frightened. She was shaking a little. "Okay Spike I get it. You're going to make us drink the Kool-Aid. So this is what now, murder-suicide?"

Clem still tried to reason with him. "Spike, you are a good person. You don't want to hurt people you care about. You don't want that on your soul."

"You're right Clem. I don't want your deaths on my soul. And no Anya, I don't have a death wish. I want you two to see that the three of us can beat this thing. We won't die. We'll find a way. I know I'm putting a lot on the line here. I know I'm asking more of you than you think you can give. But like I said, this is the only way. Once you accept that, you will know that failure is impossible."

Connor was putting on these strange new clothes. Xander and Willow watched and recollected. Willow noticed something about the tux. The vest, the jacket - it was exactly like the one Xander wore to the Homecoming Dance Senior year.

"Remember the Homecoming Dance?," she asked Xander.

"Only vaguely," he answered. "But I clearly remember getting dressed for the Homecoming Dance."

Willow thought back and giggled a little. "Yeah, the clothes. Definitely remember the clothes. And the confusion. Those were such confusing times."

Xander ruefully summed it all up. "And that was just the beginning of the confusion." For Xander the confusion had not ended.

Connor came over to them. "I don't know what to do with this bow thing."

"Oh here, let me help you with that," Willow told him. "Now you just stand still for a second Steven, and I'll take care of it." She tied Connor's bow. Just as she had done years before for Xander.

Xander and Willow then brought Connor to Buffy's house. She was upstairs with Dawn. She went down to answer the door. Connor's makeover was surprisingly thorough. "Now who's this handsome gentleman who wants to take out my sister?," she asked.

Connor looked a bit confused. "It's Steven. Remember, Steven? I kill things with you."

"I was just joking. You just look so nice and spiffed up in your new threads. Wow, Dawn's gonna flip when she sees you."

Buffy had a quick talk with Xander and Willow. "Xander, looks like you gave Steven the full GQ treatment."

"Oh, it was nothing," Xander demurred. "I just got the kid a suit and introduced him to a simple human grooming tool called the comb."

Willow jumped in with a more serious matter. "Buffy, you know from experience that in this town school dances don't usually go off, well, you know, without incident. I mean, the Hellmouth abhors inactivity, especially on a big night like tonight."

Buffy wasn't worried. "Nothing to get all wiggish about. You two are driving them. You'll be there as chaperones, so to speak. I'll be out patrolling, taking care of business. And if anything happens, you can always beep me. Besides, if anything did happen, Dawn and Steven can more than take care of themselves. I mean, this kid iced a dragon. A few flying monkeys would be a piece of cake." Xander and Willow agreed with Buffy. They were more than prepared for any eventuality.

Buffy went upstairs, told Dawn Steven was here. Dawn came down the stairs in a simple and elegant purple gown. The look on Connor's face was itself worth the price of the dress. "You look breathtaking, Steven told Dawn." She could tell by looking at him that he was being literal.

But perhaps Dawn was even more shocked with how Connor looked. This was a massive departure from his usual appearance. "My God, Steven, you look, just, unbelievably, incredibly, amazing! Wow! I mean, wow!," Dawn told him. She had made him weak in the knees plenty of times before. This was the first time Connor had made Dawn a little wobbly.

Spike led Anya and Clem into the training room connected to the Magic Shop to find weapons. "A-ha!," he declared. "Two Halberds. The Swiss used to use these to cut horses in half. They should do the trick for our demon." He handed one to Clem and one to Anya. The halberds had a spear-point, an ax-head, and a hook at the end of an eight-foot wooden shaft. They would allow Anya and Clem to attack Gardar before he could get within arm's reach of them.

Spike chose short weapons, a sickle and a small mace. He knew that this demon would rip a long sword or a long-handled ax right from his hands. He knew that to kill this thing he had to get up close and cut it apart. But to get that close to a powerful demon, Spike knew he would have to endure a crushing amount of punishment. He didn't care.

"I see they rebuilt the school to look exactly like it did before we blew it up," Willow told Xander. It was their first time in the building since graduation. As they walked the halls their minds were filled with memories that were anything but warm and fuzzy.

Xander started the haunted tour. "Now right over there, by the Coke machine, that's where Larry used to beat me up. And through those doors is the locker room where Larry and I had a heart-to-heart. If he would have just beat me up, rather than bare his soul to me, it would have been a lot less painful."

Willow joined in. "Now right there, that's the janitor's closet where Cordelia and I hid from Spike on Parent-Teacher night."

Xander recognized it for a different reason. "Wait a second! That's the janitor's closet where Cordy and I used to make out. Hold on here. Spike and Parent-Teacher night was the beginning of junior year, and we started going out in the middle of junior year. Wait a second! Is that when she got the idea that it was a good place to hide?"

Willow found this disconcerting. "Oh, great. It was my idea to hide in that closet. I was fearing for my life, and she was busy thinking gee, this would make a perfect make-out den.'"

Xander tried to end this painful walk down memory lane. "I think this little tour has taught us a very valuable lesson. Teen nostalgia – more corrosive than battery acid."

Dawn took Connor over to meet her friends Janice and Brandon. Janice wore a rather plain blue dress. Brandon wore a tuxedo with a silver sharkskin jacket. His hair was slicked back in a way which made it apparent his hair usually was not slicked back. The jacket and the hair were his ideas of looking cool.

Janice and Brandon met Dawn's mystery man. Brandon wasn't happy. The way he saw things, Connor had stolen Dawn from him. Not that Brandon and Dawn ever dated. But Brandon always felt they were destined to be together.

Janice was a lot happier to meet Connor. "Dawn, you didn't tell me he was such a major hottie," Janice gushed. Dawn and Janice went on as best friends do when discussing a new boyfriend. Janice was happy that Dawn reeled in such a choice catch.

Brandon had nothing to say to Connor. Well, he had plenty to say. He just didn't have the guts to say it to his face in public in front of Dawn and Janice. Connor sensed the cold shoulder. With Dawn busy talking with Janice, he wondered over to the refreshments table.

Alexandra and Sofia, two very popular girls, saw him. Their very popular boyfriends were discussing how they performed in that afternoon's football game. They decided to leave their boyfriends – who weren't even paying attention to them anyway – and go check out this new guy.

"He's a cutie," Alexandra said as the two of them walked over to Connor.

"Major cutie," Sofia concurred.

"He's mine," Alexandra stated.

"No way! What gives you dibs?," Sofia shot back.

"I saw him first," Alexandra answered.

"Did not!," Sofia retorted.

"Did too!," Alexandra reiterated.

Sofia got philosophical. "Look Alex, this isn't like riding shotgun. You don't get a boy because you called dibs on him first. I mean, he's a human being. We see who he likes more. Let the guy decide. Called him first? What are you, a cave woman?"

And then they reached him. "Hi, I'm Alex. Nice to meet you. Haven't seen you around much," Alexandra began.

"Hey. I'm Steven," Connor told them, politely but indifferently.

Sofia tried act like she knew more than Alexandra. "Hey, I'm Sofie. I'm guessing you don't go to Sunnydale High. You go to Saint Ignatius?," she asked Connor.

Saint Ignatius? Why not, Connor thought. Better than coming up with his own lie. "Yeah. I go there."

Sofia was pleased her inference was correct. She pressed on. "So Steven, what's it like going to an all-guys' school? I mean, no girls at all. That has to be frustrating."

Connor decided to go with the character Sofia had thrust upon him. I mean, for 16 years he did live on a planet without women. So he could relate. "It can be very lonely sometimes. You get used to it. But you always sense something is missing."

Alexandra tried to jump back in the conversation. "Omigod! That is like so true! My older sister, she went to St. Mary's and she told me the exact same thing." (Alexandra did not have an older sister. But since Connor was telling lies, it was only appropriate one of the girls would follow suit.)

Dawn noticed Connor's absence. She spotted him by the food, with Alexandra and Sofia. Saw how they were fawning all over him. Dawn was filled with visions of sweet revenge. It was too perfect. The most popular girls in school, who never talked to Dawn except to insult her, were drooling over her boyfriend.

Dawn went over. She came up from behind, and put her arms around Connor. He was getting bored with these two strange women. He turned, saw her, smiled, and she kissed him. Then she picked up a chocolate-covered strawberry from the refreshments table, and put it in Connor's mouth. Connor tasted it, smiled, kissed Dawn again.

Dawn turned to her two classmates. "Oh, hi there! Didn't notice you. Alex, Sofie, this is Steven, my boyfriend." Sofia and Alexandra were frozen with shock and humiliation.

"Are these two girls friends of yours?," Connor asked Dawn.

Dawn shot a cocky look at Alex and Sophie, then looked back at Connor. "Alex and Sophie? My friends? They wish!," she told him. Then she kissed him again, just long enough so she could taste the sour grapes in Alex's and Sophie's mouths. Connor rather liked being treated as a trophy boyfriend.

The school dance perennial "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel began to play. Dawn took Connor on out to the dance floor. The disappointment on Brandon's face was apparent from across the room. Still, he asked Janice to dance.

"Look Brandon, I'm really sorry I have to tell you this, but I'm not going to be used as the girl you fallback on. I mean, I do have some pride. Not much, mind you, but enough not to want to be anyone's number two, the one he turns to when his chances with number one are through." Janice walked away to the opposite side of the gym to sulk. Brandon leaned against the wall behind him and sulked.

Xander had seen Dawn talking to her friends. He had seen this last exchange between Janice and Brandon. It all seemed oddly familiar. Then he came upon a stunning realization. Brandon was Dawn's Xander, and Janice was Dawn's Willow!

It seemed so obvious to him now. To start with, there were the physical resemblances. And the look of jealousy on Brandon's face. And the way that jealousy drove him and Janice apart. Xander felt like he was looking back in time at himself. And he was determined that things would turn out differently this time around.

Meanwhile, Dawn and Connor were dancing in each other's arms. Connor was moved to once again articulate his feelings. "Dawn, ever since I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were the one for me. Before that moment, I was lost. I had no place in this world. And then I saw you, and everything seemed right. I knew that every moment I spent with you would be perfect. And now, standing here with you, I know I was completely right. I love you Dawn. I love how I feel when I'm near you. I love"

Dawn kissed the boy to shut him up. And also because she liked kissing him, and she knew he liked kissing her. When Dawn kissed him, Connor forgot that she hadn't returned the sentiment. This was the second time he told her he loved her, and the second time she declined to say likewise. Connor was in this relationship for true love and lifetime commitment. Dawn was in this relationship to have a little fun. She was sixteen. Far too young to be thinking about lifetime commitment.

The four wizards stood around the fire. They placed their hands on the crystal inside the fire. After a brief incantation, the crystal turned black, and the fire was extinguished. They kept their hands on the crystal.

Spike had a hunch Gardar would appear at the stone with the runic symbols carved into it. That is where he brought Anya and Clem. They had grimly accepted their imminent deaths. They couldn't bring themselves to tell Buffy, to risk Spike committing suicide. And they both feared that if they had tried to leave Spike would have killed them. They were terrified of Gardar. But they were even more terrified of Spike. He had gone mad, and they couldn't abandon their friend to his madness.

A green glowing light appeared above the stone. Spike gave his little pep talk. "I want you both to put this one thought, and this one thought only, in your minds: it's either him or me – one of us won't make it out of here alive. When you've convinced yourselves of this essential reality, you cannot be vanquished. When you know that your life can be saved only by killing this demon, you will find a way. We will find a way. Failure is not an option. Victory, or death. That's the easiest choice in the world to make."

Gardar appeared. He was green and scaly and extremely muscular, and stood about six feet eight inches tall. "I'm going in. Cover me with your halberds," Spike told Anya and Clem.

Spike approached Gardar, with Anya and Clem staying about five feet behind him. When they were close enough, they swung their halberds. Gardar moved back from their large ax blades. Spike came up to the demon and slashed Gardar's left forearm with his sickle. Gardar flinched and growled. He went after Spike, who retreated a few feet. As Gardar approach, he ran into the spear-points at the end of Anya's and Clem's halberds. He backed away, frustrated. So far so good.

Gardar realized he could not focus on Spike so long as he was threatened with those vile halberds. So he went to work eliminating this problem. He turned to his right, and approached Clem. Clem defensively swung his halberd at Gardar. Gardar grabbed its wooden shaft and spun it around. Clem tried to hold on, but the centrifugal force sent him flying into a tree. Gardar then broke the halberd in two. He threw the wooden shaft to the ground and tossed the metal blades behind him.

While Gardar was distracted while disassembling Clem's weapon, Spike ran at him and used his sickle to slice Gardar in the chest. It didn't seem to hurt the demon. Gardar grabbed Spike with his right hand, punched him twice in the face with his left fist, and then tossed Spike thirty feet into the distance.

Gardar then turned left to take on Anya. She swung her halberd for his head. Gardar ducked. She tried to stab him with her spear point. He moved out of the way. She raised the halberd for a last, desperate swing at the creature. While the halberd was up in the air, Gardar moved in and kicked Anya, sending her hurtling through the air.

Spike was not deterred by Gardar's prowess. He felt the fight was only beginning. Spike rose to his feet and went back towards the demon. Gardar swung at Spike with his right fist. Spike ducked. He went to slice Gardar with his sickle. Gardar's left hand grabbed Spike's right wrist and squeezed powerfully. Spike lost his grip on the sickle and Gardar took it away. With his left hand, Gardar brought the sickle to his mouth. He crushed the curved steel blade with his teeth. Even Spike knew this was not a good sign.

But even at this moment, Spike did not doubt himself. He still had the mace. He plunged the mace into the demon's chest. Quite deep into the demon's chest. So deep Spike had trouble pulling it out again. With evident amusement Gardar pounded his right fist into the top of Spike's skull, knocking him to his knees. He slapped Spike with his left hand, scratching Spike's right cheek with his claws. Gardar grabbed Spike's neck with his right hand and picked him up. Spike's feet dangled off the ground. Gardar punched Spike in the stomach with his left fist. Spike gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. Gardar then tossed Spike into the air and kicked him with his right foot. Spike hurtled through the air and landed on his back on a rather sharp and pointy rock. As Spike was splayed on that stone, Gardar pulled the mace from his flesh and tossed it off to the side.

Xander had never met Brandon. He didn't even know Brandon's name. But he knew Brandon. After all, Brandon was Xander. So Xander walked over and introduced himself.

"Hey there kid. I'm Xander."

Brandon was friendly at first. "Hey there older guy. I'm Brandon. Wait, I've heard of you. You're one of Dawn's friends, right?"

"Yeah, we're tight," Xander answered. "You could say I've known her all her life."

Brandon smiled. There was only one subject Brandon wanted to know more about, and that subject was Dawn Studies. "Really! You're a lucky guy. So she ever talk about me? What does she say?"

To be honest, Xander had never heard Dawn say a thing about anyone named Brandon. But he tried not to hurt the kid's feelings. "She doesn't talk much to me about school. Actually, she's never said a thing about her friends from school. It just never came up."

Brandon looked crestfallen. "Oh. I understand."

Xander sensed his disappointment. "Now Brandon, I know exactly how you feel. I was in high school not too long ago. I've been through what you're going through. You love Dawn, don't you?"

"Wait a second! How do you know the first thing about me?," an angry Brandon shot back at this stranger who was trying to identify with him.

"Just listen to me. Give me a chance to explain. You'll see where I'm coming from," Xander said to try to relax the kid. "You meet this girl, and she's perfect. Everything about her, you adore. You worship her. There are days when the remote possibility that she will feel the same way about you is all that sustains you." Brandon's expression changed, and he started to take Xander seriously.

"She likes you. She's nice to you. She hangs around you. But that only makes it worse. She's with you all the time, but part of you knows she'll never be yours. She likes you, but not in the way you like her. But as long as no one else is in the picture, you know you have a chance. That's all you need to keep going – a chance.

"And then some new guy appears. Some mystery man from out of nowhere. And all of a sudden he's all she cares about. He's all she wants. You don't know him, but you hate him. How could you not? He took your dream girl from you. He took Dawn, and left you with nothing but jealousy. So tell me Brandon, do you know what I'm talking about?"

Brandon tried to speak, but for the first few seconds was too stunned to make even a peep. "H-h-how did you know that? Who told you? Did Janice talk to you!?"

"So that's her name!," Xander declared. "Janice. Your best friend, right?"

"Who are you? Why are you sounding like you want to be my shrink or something? What kind of crazy stalker creep are you!?," a perplexed Brandon yelled at the man who knew too much.

Xander once again tried to reassure the kid. "Okay Brandon, I understand. I understand why I'm freaking you out. I know too much, don't I? A few hours ago, I didn't even know you existed. Honest. Before I came over to talk to you, I'd never even heard your voice. But tonight I saw when Dawn and Steven came over to meet you. I saw your face. I know the look of disappointment. I know the glaring eyes of jealousy. And then I saw you and your friend Janice arguing. And I knew what had happened. I knew what had happened because it's happened to me.

"That's how I know what your going through. I've gone through it myself. That shiny jacket – you probably bought it just for tonight. To try to impress her. You'd put it on and gel back your hair, and she'd see you were cool. At least that's what you hoped, right?"

Brandon was convinced but still wary. "Okay okay okay, fine. You know how I feel. Big deal. Not like I'm the first guy in high school to love a girl who's out of his league. That's, like, every guy in high school. So I'm not blown away by your insights, mister I-think-I'm-a-mind-reader. Why are you talking to me anyway? You trying to be my guardian angel or something?"

Now there was a word Xander didn't want to hear. "I ain't no angel. Don't want to be. Don't believe in Angel, I mean Angels, as a matter of fact. Let's just say I want to keep you from making the same mistake I did. Let's go out in the hall and I'll explain. Not like you want to be in this room right now, watching Dawn in Steven's arms, now do you?"

"Fine whatever. I could use some air." Xander and Brandon went into the hallway outside the gym.

"Now just listen to me a minute," Xander began. "It's not like you got anything better to do at this moment. I don't know you very well. But I do know Dawn very well. I know how lonely and isolated she can feel. She needs you, Brandon, but not in the way you think you need her."

Brandon interrupted. "So this is why you brought me out here? To tell me Dawn's out of my league and I should just accept that we'll never be more than friends?"

"That would have been a waste of time," Xander replied. "I know that you know that. Why would I tell you something you already know? The only reason I am talking to you is to tell you something you don't know."

Buffy was out patrolling solo. Six vampires suddenly appeared and surrounded her. It was obviously a well-planned ambush. "Where are your understudies?," one of them asked her.

"Slayers don't have understudies," Buffy shot back.

"That's right. They fight alone, they die alone," the vampire told her.

"Actually, the way it works is I fight alone, you vampires die together."

The vampires charged Buffy from all sides. She kicked one, spun around to kick another, did a split kick to hit two more. Then she grabbed one of the two vampires still attacking her and through him into the other vampire still attacking her. The initial charge repulsed, Buffy moved out of the circle, so they couldn't surround her when they got back up.

The most impetuous of the six charged her alone. Buffy grabbed his arm and flipped him to the ground. When he got up, she kicked him once and punched him twice in the face, then staked him.

Two more prudent vampires approached her in tandem. The idea was that when she turned to face one, the other would get her from behind. Buffy played dumb, and faced one of them, looking ready to fight him. When the other vampire charged her from behind, she reached back and staked him without even looking. The no-look dusting scared the other vampire, and he retreated to join the other three remaining vampires.

Buffy circled around the quartet. "What happened to your smirks? It's much more fun to kill a cocky vampire than a scared one. Let's see some confidence boys!" A few seconds later they all charged her at once.

Buffy made a strategic retreat. She ran away and hid behind the narrow side of a small stone mausoleum, twelve feet long, six feet wide and six feet tall. When the first vampire ran by, she reached out her left arm and clotheslined it. The vampires were to her left. She ran clockwise around the mausoleum and surprised them from behind. She kicked one vampire, knocking him to the ground. The next vamp swung for her. She ducked, grabbed his head, and threw him headfirst into the side wall of the mausoleum.

The lead vampire, the one who had taunted her, now approached. He hit her twice in the face. She blocked his next punch and connected with three of her own. Then she kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

The vamp she had thrown into the mausoleum wall blindsided Buffy on her right and tackled her. It tried to choke her, and Buffy didn't resist. With its hands around her neck, he couldn't protect his heart. Buffy staked him before he knew he was in danger.

Another vampire lunged for Buffy while she was still on the ground. She rolled away, bounded up, and kicked this vampire before it could get up. She reached down and staked it while it was still on its back.

One of the two remaining vampires grabbed Buffy from behind. She backpedaled and drove this vampire into the mausoleum wall. The lead vampire came up and punched Buffy in the face while the other vampire still held her arms. Buffy swung her legs forward, kicking the lead vampire to the ground. Her momentum spun Buffy out of the other vampire's grasp. Essentially, Buffy did a backflip onto the mausoleum's roof.

Buffy waited for the lead vampire to get up. Then she leaped at him and decked him yet again with a flying kick. The other vampire charged her from behind. She hit this vamp with a spin kick, knocking him back into the wall. Then she approached and staked him.

The lead vampire swung at Buffy's head from behind. Buffy ducked. The vampire's fist went through the mausoleum's stone wall. Buffy grabbed him. "Just so you know, you really made my evening." After this parting line Buffy head-butted the vampire in its nose, pulled out her stake one last time, and plunged it home.

Buffy was delighted. When Connor and Dawn tagged along, she never faced any challenges. Dispatching six vamps at once let Buffy know that she still could get the job done on her own. She appreciated the help. But she had shown herself she didn't need it.

Brandon was beyond impatient. "Fine. Go ahead. Get to it. Quit stalling. While we're still young. Well, while I'm still young and you're still middle-aged."

Middle-aged? That hurt Xander. Until he remembered he would probably have said the same thing if he was in Brandon's shoes. This kid really was like Xander, coming back with the one-liners and all. "I just wanted to make sure I had your attention, Brandon. Ive done Ghost of Christmas Past and Ghost of Christmas Present. Now I'll do Ghost of Christmas Future, maybe throw in a little Snoopy Dance to lighten things up. Just kidding about that last thing.

"I have a hunch you and Janice are best friends. I have a hunch that it is obvious to you that Janice wants to be more than your best friend. And I have a hunch you don't see Janice the way she sees you. So tell me, how'm I hunching?"

"Three for three," Brandon told Xander. "What, you figured that out just by watching us tonight?"

Xander smiled. "Call it Middle Age Man's Intuition. And I'll take a little leap and guess you've been friends since you were little kids. Am I on the ball?"

"You're in the ballpark," Brandon told him.

And now was Xander's big moment. "So of course when you look at Janice you're not filled with teen lust. I mean, she's Janice, right? Perhaps another guy, a guy who didn't grow up with her, may find her kinda cute. But to you she's just your best bud, your old pal.

"But I'll predict that one day a few years from now you'll look at her, and it'll feel like you're seeing her for the first time. You'll realize she's grown up, and she's beautiful. And at that moment you'll feel about her the same way she now feels about you. But by then it will be too late. She'll have grown tired of waiting for you, and found someone else. And you'll regret having been blind all those years. All that time, all those chances, and you just let her slip right through your fingers."

Brandon was not sold. "Now at first, you creeped me out because you made sense. Now you're creeping me out because you have no idea what you are talking about. And what's with the whole psychic matchmaker thing? Why you buggin' me?"

"Am I buggin' ya? Don't mean to bug ya," Xander joked, lifting Bono's line from the live version of "Silver and Gold" on "Rattle and Hum." "The thing is, I look at you and I see myself when I was in high school. I had my own Dawn, my own Steven, my own Janice. So I just want to give you the benefit of my experience. Now all I want you to do is one simple, little, harmless thing. When you go back into the gym, before you return to giving Steven the evil eye and stewing in your own bile, try something. Try looking at Janice like she's not your best friend, like you haven't known her since your wore those little foot pajamas. Try to look at her as if you're seeing her for the first time. That's all I ask. Like I said before, it's not like you have anything better to do."

Brandon was underwhelmed. "Stop, look, think? That's why you pulled me aside? And what's that about pajamas?"

"Just a metaphor. Forget about that. But will you do it?"

"Fine whatever why not. You know something, Xander?"

"What's that?," Xander asked back.

"You're weird. Powerful weird. The Count of Weirdonia."

"You know what?," Xander responded. "I would have said exactly the same thing. But you'll do what I said, right?"

"Like I said, whatever," Brandon responded before going back into the gym. Xander took that as a yes.

Brandon walked along the gym's wall, talking to himself. "This is crazy. This is nuts. I don't know why I'm even thinking about this. But that's all it is. Looking and thinking. No harm no foul no problem. Why should I do this? Why not? Here goes nothing."

So Brandon tried Xander's little mental exercise. Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" began playing. He looked at Janice. And he thought the unthinkable. It was just as crazy middle-aged guy predicted. Her hair, her skin, her cute little smile. It touched Brandon like never before. And then right when Buckley finished his opening guitar noodling and resolved the main arpeggio, Brandon realized everything had changed. He walked over to Janice to explain his epiphany.

Xander went back to Willow. He pointed to Brandon and Janice, who were now talking. "You see that girl and that guy over there? That's Janice and Brandon, Dawn's best friends. Janice is Dawn's Willow, and Brandon is Dawn's Xander. Look at them. Don't you see it?"

Willow did see the resemblance. "Wow! You're right! Dawn's got her own mini-Scooby gang. That's so cool!" Then Willow thought for about this. "Wait a minute. If Janice is Dawn's Willow and Brandon is Dawn's Xander, does that make Steven Dawn's Angel?"

Xander burst out laughing. Willow thought about what she said, and soon she started laughing. After about 30 seconds Xander regain enough composure to talk. "Steven and Angel! He-heh-heh-heh. Steven as Angel? He-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Good one Willow! That's just the wackiest thing I ever heard."

"You're right. He-heh-heh. I'm sorry. What was I thinking?," Willow added in agreement.

"Don't be sorry. I haven't laughed this hard in years," Xander told her. "It's just, I can't think of two more different people – uh, I mean creatures – than Steven and Angel. Steven's not some creepy older guy. And he's human. And he likes me. We get along great. So they're just, like, total opposites."

"I see that now, I do," Willow responded. "But that was a good laugh. I guess I just took the parallel one step too far into absurdity." Then Willow thought of something completely different. "I didn't come back to high school to be the only girl who didn't find someone to dance with. Let's go. You and me, buster." Xander was hesitant, but Willow grabbed him by his tie and he went along.

Xander was uncomfortable. Generally a slow dance with Willow was meaningless. But considering all he was feeling for her at this moment, this would not be meaningless, at least for him. Xander felt a bit guilty. Willow didn't know this was turning him on. It made Xander feel a bit dirty.

By now Brandon and Janice were dancing. Xander caught Brandon's eye. Brandon winked at him, and smiled. Xander winked back. Willow looked up at him and said "Xander, why were you gone for so long?"

Xander tried to craft an answer which made him sound noble but did not make it sound like he was obsessing over Willow. "I saw Dawn and Steven talking to Brandon and Janice. It was obvious Brandon had it bad for Dawn. I had an idea what he was going through. So I had a chat with him. Told him that she was never going to love him in that way. Said he should give a girl who really does love him that way a chance. Said that he should let somebody love him, before it's too late. Of course, I didn't use those exact words. I was much more poetic."

"That's so sweet," Willow said to Xander. "You're like a school dance guidance counselor or something." Then Willow saw Brandon dancing with Janice. Saw them kissing. And it all came together. Brandon being Xander and Janice being Willow. Xander convincing Brandon to give Janice a chance. At first she was merely shocked. Then she held Xander even tighter and put her head on his shoulder. "That was a wonderful thing you did for Dawn's friends," she told him.

Xander was very pleasantly surprised. Maybe he did have a chance with Willow after all. But knowing this only put more pressure on Xander. Did this mean he was supposed to make the next move?

As he pealed himself off the rock, Spike began to really know what it meant to be human. The pain was tremendous. His mobility was limited. He stumbled back to Gardar. "Come on Gardar, show me what you really got!," Spike yelled at him. Gardar led with a left jab. Spike moved his head to the side to avoid the punch. Gardar tried to sweep out Spike's legs with his right leg. Spike jumped over the sweeping leg. Gardar quickly followed with a right hook. While still in midair, Spike ducked his head and shoulders down to avoid the blow.

Spike counterattacked, landing four punches to Gardar's face. Gardar grabbed Spike with his meaty arms. Spike wiggled his right arm free and tried to gouge Gardar's eyes. Gardar got mad, and bit Spike's right forearm. Spike stepped on Gardar's foot, causing the demon to let go of him.

Spike retreated a few steps to check out his arm. There were large teeth marks on both sides of the forearm, and it was bleeding pretty badly. "Ow! Bugger all! Stupid poetic justice. Fine! Now I remember how it feels to be bitten." Spike ran heedlessly at Gardar, who boxed his ears. Then he landed four powerful punches to Spike's face. Spike went down, spitting out blood.

Though he looked thoroughly beaten, Spike was far from ready to throw in the towel. "If you were any kind of a real demon I would be dead by now!," he yelled to Gardar as he got back on his feet. Gardar decked him again with a right uppercut. As the teeth in Spike's lower jaw were driven into the teeth in his upper jaw, he began to get a nasty concussion. But Spike wasn't going to let a massive brain bruise keep him down. He rose yet again, still talking. "You're not a demon! You're nothing but an overgrown bouncer with a skin condition!" Gardar swung twice for Spike's head. Spike used his hands and arms to shield his face and block the blows.

But this left his body exposed. Gardar pummelled Spike twice in the ribs. Spike kept his arms up, and bent forward, trying in vain to make his body a smaller, less inviting target. Gardar sent a roundhouse right into Spike's left kidney. Spike groaned in agony. He knew he had to fight back. He punched Gardar twice in the stomach, and landed a right uppercut to the demon's chin. Gardar pushed Spike a few feet back. He tattooed Spike's nose with a right kick, and rattled the side of his head with a left kick. Spike, nearly unconscious, collapsed.

Clem was back on his feet by now. He grabbed what was left of his wooden halberd shaft, held it overhand like a spear, and ran at Gardar. He had to save Spike. Gardar turned and leveled Clem with a right forearm.

Anya tried next. She picked up her halberd and ran at the demon, holding her spear-point outward. Gardar saw the approaching pike and moved a few steps to his left to get out of the way. Anya then swung at him with the ax. But swinging an eight-foot long halberd takes a few seconds. Before she could land her blow, Gardar charge Anya and grabbed her. The halberd fell to the ground. Gardar picked Anya up over his head and slammed her back down to earth with thunderous force.

This time, Spike was not getting up. He was down for the count. Gardar kicked him in the spine. He tried to stomp on Spike's head, but Spike rolled out of the way of the demon's foot. Gardar bent down and swung his right hand at Spike, trying to dig into the helpless human's flesh with his claws. Spike again rolled out of the way just in the nick of time.

When Spike told Anya and Clem he would fight Gardar, they said he was mad. But more than a century ago Angel and Darla said the same thing when Spike told them he was going to fight a Slayer. Spike didn't listen do Angel and Darla for the same reason he didn't listen to Anya and Clem. Spike always believed that when his life was on the line and escape was impossible, he would find a way to win. Now was his last chance to find a way to win.

And just like last week, art would imitate epic literature, with a twist even Homer himself would have found grizzly. Spike crawled to the outside of Gardar's right foot. He put his head behind Gardar's right heel, and bit down hard. With his teeth, his unfangy human teeth, Spike ripped off Gardar's right Achilles' Tendon, and a lot of the flesh around it. Gardar screamed. Unable to use his right foot to support his massive weight, Gardar fell backwards to the ground. Spike rolled out of the way of the falling demon. He spit out the chuck of demon flesh in his mouth, rolled onto his back, and looked up at the stars. Under his breath, he muttered "Achilles wasn't invincible. But I am."

The moment Gardar hit the turf, Clem and Anya knew this was their chance. Clem plunged the pointy end of his wooden shaft into Gardar's heart. Anya swung her halberd, and with its ax she cut off Gardar's head.

As the wizards held their hands to the crystal, it turned from black to clear. Then a powerful white light radiated out from its center, knocking the wizards away from the crystal and onto the ground. Shards of green light shot out from them. Then a green ball of light burst forth from inside each of them. An instant later, the light disappeared, and the wizards were nothing more than green dust. Dust which looked an awful lot like the magnesium powder they bought from Anya.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I'd been rooting for them for so long. And then, out of nowhere, they're together. It's like magic!" Dawn was in the car heading home, crowing about the inexplicable Janice and Brandon love connection.

"It wasn't magic. It was Xander," Willow whispered in Xander's ear as he drove. "You're my hero tonight."

"This is so great. I mean, it's just amazing. Now we can double date with them. That's so cool!"

"Double date?," Connor asked Dawn. He wasn't familiar with the term.

"Yeah Steven. You and me and Janice and Brandon can do stuff together," Dawn told him.

"Brandon?," Connor responded. "I don't really like Brandon."

Dawn tried to ease Connor's worries. "I know. When you first meet him Brandon can seem a little strange. But he grows on you."

Xander arrived at Buffy's house. Knowing they were about to be separated, Connor and Dawn started going at it. Xander was having difficulty coaxing them to separate. Finally he decided to try trickery. "Oh hi Buffy!," he yelled. Nice to see you out here on the porch."

Connor had always instinctively feared Buffy. I mean, when they first met she tried to stake him. And based on his primitive understanding of family bonds, he believed Buffy would resent him because he was taking Dawn away from her. So Connor quickly let go of Dawn and removed his lips from hers. "Gotcha," Xander joked. "But seriously, I promised to get Dawn home by midnight, and she's already a few minutes late."

"Just because I have to be in the house right now doesn't mean Steven can't be in the house with me," Dawn told Xander. Connor smiled. Dawn took him in. Xander realized Dawn was old enough to know how to exploit loopholes.

"How was your big night out?," Buffy asked Dawn.

"It was great. It was better than great. It was perfect. No, it was better than perfect," Dawn gushed. She then whispered to Buffy "forget about Christmas presents. Forget about birthday presents. I don't need em now."

Buffy laughed, then added "I hope you know I'm going to hold you to that promise."

"So how was your patrol?," Connor asked Buffy.

"Very quiet. You didn't miss a thing," she told him.

"Without reservation, the best school dance I have ever been to," Xander told Buffy.

"He's not exaggerating," Willow added. "It was almost like it was in a town other than Sunnydale. I mean, how could anything be that perfect in our town?"

"Except being in that school reminded us that, yes, we were in Sunnydale," Xander clarified. "It's the spookiest thing, Buff. They rebuilt it to look exactly like it did when we went there. Reminded us why we were glad we're through with high school."

While they were recollecting Dawn was prolonging her wonderful night. "Steven, this was easily the best night of my life. I just feel so happy to be with you." She started stroking his hair. She had never really noticed it much before. Amazing what a little shampoo and a comb can do.

Connor responded to Dawn's flattery. "I have never been happier than I was tonight. But now, ever while I'm here with you, I'm getting sad. It's ending. I'll have to leave. And right now, I never want to let go of you ever again."

For Dawn, Steven's profuse flattery still hadn't gotten old or tedious. She kissed him. Buffy and Willow and Xander noticed this. "I think you'll need to bring out the Jaws of Life," Xander joked to Buffy. "I'm through babysitting for tonight," he added as a parting shot. Xander and Willow headed upstairs to Willow's room. Buffy decided to let Dawn and Connor have their moment. So long as they were doing nothing more than kissing.

Willow and Xander were finally alone. "Did you see how happy Dawn was about Janice and Brandon?," Willow gushed. "You did a really beautiful thing tonight. You made me remember that killing demons isn't the only way to help people. You changed a few people's lives tonight."

"It was the least I could do. Really, it was," Xander bashfully responded. "It was like one of those movies where people get to go back to high school and do everything right the second time around. But those are just fantasies. No one can change the past. But at least I got the chance to use what I learned from the past to make someone else's future better. It's nice to know there are people who can benefit from my mistakes."

"And you thought you learned nothing from high school!," Willow joked. She hugged Xander. Then she looked into his eyes, and they had one of those awkward moments which can be a prelude to a kiss. Xander ended the awkwardness by kissing Willow – on her forehead. A nice friendly peck from her best bud.

Xander decided now was not the time to press matters. After all, he was standing a few feet from where Tara fell dead. He knew it was too soon. He would not ruin everything by coming on too strong, too soon.

Xander left Willow for the night and came downstairs. Dawn and Connor were still going at it. Xander ducked into the kitchen to talk to Buffy. "Didn't have the heart, did you?," he asked her.

"Actually I do have heart," Buffy responded. "If I were heartless, I wouldn't let them have their moment. But this is Dawn's big night, so I'll let her savor it. Well, so long as Steven doesn't pull any funny business.

Buffy and Xander looked into the living room. It was Dawn who was pulling the funny business! Her hands were getting a little too busy. Kissing was fine, but groping was where Buffy drew the line. She was just surprised it was her little sis who had been the one to cross that line.

"Sorry sis. I'm gonna have to force you to call it a night. I think if you keep Steven here any longer Xander's wheels are gonna turn into a pumpkin." The sound of Buffy's voice caused Connor to quickly let go of Dawn and back away. He eyed Buffy warily.

Buffy walked over to him. "Steven, I want you to know how glad I am that you make my sister so happy. I don't believe she could have a better boyfriend if I had picked one for her myself."

Connor was relieved. The fearsome Buffy was being nice to him. "Uh, thanks. I'm, uh, glad that you're glad."

"Are you okay Spike?," Clem bent down and asked his prostrate friend. He saw a hint of the extent of Spike's injuries. The mauled arm. The scratched and bleeding and bruised face. Nearly all of Spike's face was now red or blue. "I think we need to get you to a hospital," Clem told Spike.

"No hospital," Spike rasply answered as loud as he could, which wasn't very loud but was loud enough to get his point across. "Hospitals are for the sick. I've never felt better. Just let me lie here a while, savor victory."

"I think it's best if we don't move him right now," Anya said to Clem. She bent down and took a close look at Spike. Tears started welling up in her eyes. "That was a beautiful thing you did Spike. A beautiful, stupid, selfish thing." She started crying. Then Anya ran her fingers through Spike's hair –which by now was blond with red streaks – and kissed Spike on his forehead.

Because of his concussion – actually, multiple concussions – and rather extensive internal bleeding, Spike wasn't exactly aware of his physical surroundings at this moment. He might not even have seen or heard Anya. He just stared at the stars and smiled, his teeth soaked in his own blood. A few Leonard Cohen lyrics went through his battered but intact brain:

"Maybe there's a god above,

but all I have ever learned from love,

was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

And it's not a cry that you hear at night,

it's not somebody who's seen the light,

it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-jah, hal-le-lu-o-o-ooo-yah."


	6. Chapter Six: Confessions

Dru comes to town to meet her "baby brother," and blows Connor's cover.. Everyone finds out who Connor is. Connor finds out about Buffy and Angel. Buffy finds out about Angel and Cordy. And of course Dru and Spike have a reunion of sorts.

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." You can find these words in the Gospel of John. You can also find them on the front of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. Just what Jesus of Nazareth would make of this depends on whether He has a well-developed sense of irony. Judging from the course of human history, it is fair to say His Father does.

Christians came up with a corollary to this maxim: telling the truth shall set you free. All forms of the Christian faith advocate, in one form or another, the confession of sins. As he did every Sunday after the 9am Mass, Father Ernesto Torres prepared to hear confession at the Church of the Blessed Virgin. Few of the penitent faithful ever came. Few wanted to go to the trouble of seeking formal absolution. To Father Torres, it seemed that nowadays everyone just assumed the Lord's forgiveness was automatic, like some sort of entitlement. Most of those who still came were pious elderly women whose faith was molded by an earlier, more God-fearing era.

The only person Father Torres expected to see soon was Monsignor Phillip Denonville, who would assist him with the noon Mass. So Father Torres was surprised when a young woman entered his confessional that Sunday morning. "Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last Confession," she began with a noticeable English accent. Through the grating, Father Torres could see that the woman was wearing a nun's habit.

"I have sinned in my heart. I have doubted God's love and mercy. Shortly after I entered the convent, my mother and father were taken from this world. So were all of my brothers and sisters. They were all good people. They believed in Jesus. They lived by His word. And yet He did not protect them from this cruel fate.

"I have tried with all my soul to reconcile this loss with my belief in a just God. But lately I have been tempted by the Devil. I have heard voices telling me succumb to his power. These voices say that it would not be wrong for me to abandon God, since God has already abandoned me."

"God has not abandoned your soul, my child," Torres began. "Your parents, your siblings, they are in a better world. God has taken them to be with Him in Heaven. Yes, God is testing the strength of your devotion. But you have proved to me that your devotion is strong. You proved this by coming here today, by seeking my guidance. Remember the Virgin. Remember her sufferings. Make your faith as indestructible as hers. Your tribulations will only make your soul purer, bring you closer to Jesus."

The woman ripped off the grating, so the priest could see her true monstrous face. "Sorry, but I beg to differ," she said. Then she bit and killed the stunned Torres.

She left the booth, went to one of the pews, and knelt to pray. A few minutes later Monsignor Denonville arrived. She was the only other person in the church. He walked over to her. "Pardon me, Sister, but have you seen Father Torres?"

"I just talked with him a minute ago. Permit me to take you to him, Monsignor. It would be my honor."

Denonville agreed. The woman led the Monsignor to a side room adjacent to the church. He entered ahead of her. Then she removed his collar, exposed his neck, and bit him.

About ninety minutes later the noon Mass began. A few hundred people were in attendance. The lay abbots began the service. The choir sang a few songs. A lay abbot read a passage from the Gospel and gave the Homily. The choir sang another song. Then Monsignor Denonville appeared at the alter for the Eucharist.

"And Jesus gave the cup to his disciples and said this is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. Take this cup and drink of it. Do this in memory of me.'"

The vampire who sired the Monsignor sat in her habit in the last row, snickering. After watching her clever little joke reach its punchline, she left the church and stepped outside. The robes and veil of the habit protected her from the sun long enough for her to slip down into the sewers, which she took to the vacant mansion on the hill.

As the vampire walked outside in her nun's attire, Buffy drove past the church on her way to the Magic Shop. She entered and saw Spike near the back of the store. His bruises were easy to spot from 30 feet away. "What happened Spike? Those frat boys not like to your music?," she joked. Spike didn't feel like explaining his injuries at that moment, and sulked off into the storeroom.

Anya walked up to Buffy and slapped her hard in the face with her right hand. Buffy was stunned and stupefied. "What was that?," she asked Anya. Anya slapped her again in the face with her right hand, this time even harder. "Are you begging for a beatdown?," she asked Anya.

Anya of course was outraged because she knew exactly how Spike sustained those injuries. But she wasn't prepared to tell Buffy. Not directly. Anya pointed to Gardar's head, which rested on a shelf behind the cash register. "I'll have you know Spike got those marks killing that demon."

"Ooh. Whoa. Am I supposed to be impressed?," Buffy responded sardonically. "Spike went out and bagged himself a demon, and he gave you a trophy so he could show off. Big deal. It probably wasn't even a very strong demon. Something nice and easy for little Spikey to brag about."

Anya was about to slap Buffy again but thought that would just be gratuitous. Instead she grabbed a black marker in her right hand, grabbed Buffy's right forearm with her left hand, and wrote the letters G-A-R-D-A-R on Buffy's arm. "Gardar. G-a-r-d-a-r. That's the demon Spike killed. Go look it up. Find out what it was. And don't come back into my story until you have."

Buffy was outraged. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get this stuff off your skin? You have gone mental, haven't you?"

"Nope. I'm just not in the mood for rudeness right now," Anya responded.

Buffy couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Rude! I'm rude?! You attack me. You scribble on my skin. And I'm rude? I just came in here to get some of my weapons."

"Your weapons?," Anya asked rhetorically. "Those weapons were the legal property of one Rupert Giles. When the aforementioned Rupert Giles transferred ownership of the Magic Shop to me, I became the owner of everything in the shop, including those weapons. So technically they are my weapons. Since I'm not rude, I will let you borrow them. I'll even be nice enough to let you keep them, even though they are technically my property. But before that can happen, you find out what that word on your arm means."

"So what is this? You're going to keep me from entering this building like I'm a vampire or a demon?," Buffy contemptuously asked.

"Not exactly," Anya explained. "You are a human being. At this moment you might not be acting like one, but that's what you were the last time I checked. I won't forcibly keep you out. I was hoping you would have enough manners and good sense to not go where you're not wanted. And until you find out just what exactly a Gardar is, I don't want you in my store."

Buffy looked at the letters on her right arm. Then she looked at Anya and scowled. "You're right," Buffy told Anya. "I'm not the one in this conversation who's the demon, now am I?" She turned and left and slammed the door behind her.

Buffy stalked home. The nerve of Anya!, she thought. Who was Anya to disrespect her? When she got inside the house, she sat down and looked at the word on her arm. Then she called Giles. When he left after Willow's rampage, Giles left his home number with Buffy. He wanted to keep in touch with her in order to prevent events from ever again spiralling so completely out of control. "Hi Giles, it's me Buffy. Things are fine here. I just have one reasearchy question. What's a Gardar? That's spelled g-a-r-d-a-r. I know it's some kind of demon, but if you know something more about it give me a call back. Thanks. Hope everything's going great for you. Bye."

Buffy was washing the ink off her arm when she heard Dawn coming down the stairs. "Morning sleepy head. I know it's the afternoon after your big night, but you sure slept in a long time, even by your standards."

"I couldn't get to sleep until like around five," Dawn offered in her defense. "I was just so excited about Steven and everything."

Buffy thought she knew what this meant. "Sleepless nights because of a boy. Face it. You're in love."

Dawn begged to differ. "Love! Love? That's what you think this is? Well, it's not. It's not love. I mean, we just met. I guess, sure, I like him. A lot. Okay, an awful lot. I love being with him. I love touching him. But no, I don't love Steven. I barely know him."

Buffy disagreed with Dawn's reasoning. "You don't have to know someone to love them. What about love at first sight?"

"Buffy, when I first saw Steven, I thought he was a vampire. You tried to stake him, remember?"

A half-hour later the phone rang. Buffy quickly picked it up. "Giles?," she asked.

"No, last time I checked I wasn't a fifty year-old Englishman," Xander replied.

"Sorry about that Xander. It's nothing. So what are you calling about."

"Just wanted to say hi, see how you were."

"I guess I'm okay. Went to the Magic Shop to get some of my weapons, and Anya was just this total bitch."

"Anya, a bitch? Gee, that's a shocker," Xander sarcastically quipped.

Buffy explained. "No, this was new. She was like, ultra-bitch. She attacked me, physically attacked me."

Xander tried to envision this, which didn't help. All he could see was an extremely titillating catfight. So had to get this out of his mind and say something appropriate to Buffy. "Okay. Okay. That is a side of Anya I have definitely not seen before. I really don't know what to tell you."

"Don't worry yourself about it. It's not like she hurt me. Like Anya could hurt me!," Buffy said before laughing. At that moment she didn't realize that Anya had hurt her once before – not physically, but emotionally. This of course was when Anya slept with Spike. "Anyway, how have you been Xander?

"I'm good. Just came back from taking Steven shopping. Call me crazy, but he seemed to have an animal skin fixation. He kept wanting to buy all this leather, snakeskin, crocodile skin. He wanted leather pants, but I told him no. The only people who wear leather pants are aging rock stars and vampires.' I did manage to get him some sensible cloth clothing."

When Xander called Dawn had picked up the phone, thinking it may be Janice. She heard Buffy and Xander's conversation. Connor in leather pants? Dawny liked.

Just after sunset Spike was back home, lying on the couch. His stereo played the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." It helped with hangovers, so he thought it might help with his concussion-related headaches. Spike took a drag from his cigarette, and coughed violently, hurting his tender ribs. He never knew a person could be too injured to smoke. He put the cigarette out in the palm of Gardar's left hand, which was on the coffee table. Then he picked up his drink from Gardar's right hand, which was also on the coffee table. The drink helped dull the pain. At least Spike wasn't too hurt to drink.

After getting enough strength to stand up after defeating Gardar, Spike took his trophies. He kept the hands and feet for himself, since they caused most of his injuries. He thought of using the feet either as bookends or doorstops. The head went the Anya's store, where it would make a nice decoration. Clem took the demon's chest, like some otherworldly ancient Greek bust.

There was one trophy Spike kept hidden, just for himself. He wanted to know where the wizards were when they conjured Gardar. Spike knew from his research that they were dead. When people conjure a Courier Demon, part of their essence goes into that demon. That essence would have returned to the wizards with the key power when the demon killed Dawn." But if the Courier Demon dies before getting hold of its "package," this kills and obliterates the conjurers. Conversely, since the conjurers vanish into dust, the Courier Demon's corpse does not disappear, or even decay.

Spike knew the spell had to be performed within a few miles of where Gardar materialized. It would have to be performed outdoors. The ceremony would involve a stone circle. And since this kind of thing looks odd to most onlookers, the ceremony would be held at a remote location. Spike put this together and after the shop closed he drove out to the wastelands along a highway a few miles south of town. The spot wasn't hard to find.

It wasn't hard to find because the Acacia crystal was glowing like a beacon amongst the ashes of the fire. Around it was the stone circle, as well as four piles of dust Spike knew to be the remains of the wizards. He took the dust and spread it between his fingers. These were the men who conjured the demon which tried to kill Spike. And look at them now! Spike took the crystal back to his car. He left off for home listening to Bruce Springsteen's "The Ties That Bind" on his car radio:"

"you're so afraid of being found out, it's true

you're walking tough, but you're walking blind

to the ties that bind

you can't break the ties that bind

you can't forsake the ties that bind"

Spike finished his drink and put it back on his Gardar "coaster." Connor entered. The crypt was dark, and from the outside it looked as if nobody was home. But Connor could hear the stereo from outside, so he knew Spike was in. "Spike, you're here right?," he asked as he entered.

Spike groaned and raised his back off the couch to see who it was. "Evening Steven. Say, could you be a nice houseguest and turn on the lights?"

With the lights on, Connor could see Spike's bruises. "Spike! You're hurt!"

"It's really nothing. You should see the other guy. In fact, you can see parts of the other guy." Spike pointed to the coffee table. "There are the other guy's hands." Then he pointed to the top of his dresser. "And there are the other guy's feet."

Connor hadn't seen Spike since Thursday night. "When did you kill this demon?," he asked Spike.

"Last night, while you and Dawn were at the big dance."

"Sorry I couldn't help you."

"No reason to be sorry, Steven. Every now and then I need to go solo, just me and a monster. It's a good way to test myself to the limit, see what I'm made of. Don't let my appearance fool you. I feel great. So how was last night?"

"It was great, Spike. The greatest, actually."

"So how did you like the social scene, meeting and mingling with all your peers?," Spike asked, using "peers" somewhat jokingly.

"Don't remember being in that scene," Connor replied. "Most of the time, it was like Dawn and I were the only people in the room. I wasn't aware of the presence anyone but her."

"Happy to hear you had yourself a smashing time," Spike added. Connor's comments brought him no small measure of pride. It proved to Spike that his sacrifice was noble, that his gamble was truly worth the risk.

"What is that music playing?," Connor asked Spike.

"That's the Kinks. You like?"

"I do. The sounds are pretty."

"Well then here, let me let you borrow it." Spike went over to the stereo and took out the compact disc, put it back in its case, and handed it to Connor. "Enjoy. And whenever you're here, listen to whatever you want, and if you like it, go ahead and take it."

Then Spike crafted a wonderfully self-serving analogy. "The one thing I would be proudest to give you, Steven, is good taste in music. Remember this: the quality of a person's soul can be measured by the quality of the music they like. And the Kinks – very high quality." Connor got the complement, smiled, and left with the disc.

Buffy was home at this time watching the local news. Then the anchor gave Buffy a scoop. "Unimaginable tragedy at the Church of the Blessed Virgin, where this afternoon Father Ernesto Torres and four altar boys were found dead. Police have declared it a multiple homicide, though they declined to reveal how the five victims were murdered."

Whenever the Sunnydale Police declined to reveal the cause of death, they revealed the cause of death to Buffy. At this very moment, Dawn came out of the kitchen and said "if it's okay with you I'm going over to Janice's. I'll be back by 11."

Buffy was preoccupied with the latest vampire killings. "Sure, have a good time," she said to Dawn and Dawn went out the front door. Just after Dawn left, Buffy left – to break into the coroner's office yet again. She had broken in so many times they might as well have put a "welcome back Buffy" sign on the front door.

Dawn was in Janice's room talking about – here's a cliche – boys. Well, just two boys. Janice did most of the talking. "So he calls me at, like, ten this morning. I'm still half asleep in bed. He tells me he's been up for hours. That all he can do is think about me. That he was going crazy not hearing the sound of my voice."

Dawn couldn't believe it. "Brandon said that?! No way!"

"Totally! I couldn't believe it myself. I thought he was joking. You know how much of a joker he can be. But then we talked for, like, two hours. Now, sure, we do that all the time. But this was new. Brandon was new."

"I love that you two are finally together, Janice. You know I've been rooting for this since last year. And then suddenly, overnight, like you said, a whole new Brandon. No offense, but don't you find this sudden changing a little, well, you know, bizarre?"

"Yeah, I admit I've felt the same thing. I have to keep pinching myself to prove I'm not dreaming, which explains all the welts on my arms. It did seem too good to be true. But it is true. I don't know how to explain it. Last night, out of nowhere, Brandon comes over to me and starts gushing about how I'm the most beautiful girl he's ever seen and begging me to forgive him for never noticing this before.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I still can't. But so what. It's a lot more fun to enjoy a miracle than to try to explain it. All I can say is that Cupid didn't hit Brandon with an arrow; Cupid hit Brandon with a Cruise Missile."

At around 9pm Drusilla was out for an evening snack. Something innocent. Along the sidewalk a mother and father were walking with their two sons, ages 4 and 6. Each son held the leash to a dog. It was like a Norman Rockwell canvas. For Dru wholesome equalled delicious.

But she faced a dilemma. Dru wanted to eat the children. But she didn't know if she was hungry enough for the parents. Angel of course would have eaten the children and spared the parents so he could watch them grieve. But Dru didn't get off on observing the pain she caused. For her the excitement was in the kill, or more precisely in the moment right before the kill. Angel loved it when his victims struggled. But to Dru a struggle was too boring, too commonplace. It was an animal's instinct to fight when its life was in danger. What was special was when the animal didn't fight. To take a victim without a fight – that was what Drusilla savored.

Dru also loved games. Especially children's games. So she chose to make a little game out of this kill. She snuck up behind the happy family and snatched the wife with her left hand. Her husband went after Dru, and she threw him to the ground with her right hand.

"Tell your boys to come to mummy," Dru told the mother as she held her by the back of her neck. The woman was terrified and unresponsive. So Dru put her right hand in this woman's right hand, their fingers entwined. Then she squeezed, breaking several bones in the woman's hand. "Tell them to come to Mummy," she repeated.

"Jason, Billy, come over hear. Don't worry, everything will be all right. Mommy's fine. Just come over to me." The frightened, confused boys did what their tearful mother requested.

Dru grabbed Jason, the oldest, in her right hand. She picked him up and brought him to her mouth, and put on her vampire face. The mother tried to scream, but Dru squeezed her throat so she couldn't make much of a racket. "No screaming, that's against the rules," Dru whispered in her ear.

"What do you want!?," the father yelled, pulling out his wallet. "Here's all the money I have. Take it! Whatever you do, please don't hurt my family."

"Your funny paper's not what I want," Dru told him. "I want to play a little game. You like games, don't you?" At this point the father realized the woman attacking his family was completely nuts. "Now play the rules, and everyone will have a good time. You choose who I let go of – your wife, or your son."

"Please Arthur, don't let them do anything to Jason," the wife pleaded. Then she looked at Dru and said "don't hurt my boys, take me."

"That's up to your Arthur," Dru told her. "Arthur, I'm waiting. I don't like to be kept waiting when I'm playing my game."

A look of unimaginable anguish fell upon Arthur's face. "Think of the boys!," his wife beseeched him. So Arthur came to what he believed was the only honorable decision. "Do what Elizabeth says, he told Drusilla. Let go of Jason. Take me instead."

Dru tossed Jason into Arthur's arms. Then she slashed Elizabeth's throat with her left index finger. As Arthur began hugging his son, he saw his wife fall to the ground. He put Jason down and leaped at Drusilla. She laughed, grabbed him, and spun him around so she held him from behind. "Jason and Billy will always know their father died a brave man," she said to him before cutting his throat with the same fingernail she used to dispatch his wife.

She then moved onto the boys. They ran right in between her legs, which she thought was just the most adorable thing. Dru turned and pursued, which wasn't very hard. Small legs can't run very fast. When she neared them, Jason, the older of the boys, turned around and shielded his younger brother. Dru was touched by this display of filial affection.

Jason was shaking, but his face displayed both fear and determination. He was an animal, and he would fight to defend his life and fight to save the life of his kin. But he didn't know what to do. His head barely came up to Dru's waist. Dru caressed Jason's cheek with her right hand, telling him "there there, dear boy, there there, dear boy." He grabbed that hand and bit it as hard as he could.

Dru growled and pulled her right hand upwards. Like a bulldog, Jason held onto Dru's hand with his teeth, and he was pulled off the ground. "Didn't your mummy and daddy teach you it was not polite to bite?," Dru asked Jason. Then she dug her teeth into his tiny neck. When he died his jaws stayed shut on Dru's right hand. In order to get free, she had to dislocate his jaw with her left hand. Without vampire strength, she would have needed a crowbar to do this.

Little Billy tried to run away. Dru reached down and grabbed his shirt from behind. His legs kept pumping as she picked him up. He tried to scream but Dru put her left hand over his mouth. "Your mummy and your daddy and your brother have all gone to a better place, Billy. And since I'm such a nice lady I'm going to send you there, so you can be one happy family." Then she bit down and drank him. When finished, she dropped his corpse next to Jason's.

Dru walked back to the dogs. They were drinking the blood which had spilled from the throats of Arthur and Elizabeth. Dru didn't think she had ever seen a cuter site in all her life. She bent down and petted the dogs, telling them "you're such good doggies, such good good little doggies." Then she picked up their leashes and took them for a walk.

Drusilla wasn't the only demon out on the prowl that night. For the first time in his life, Clem was hunting. He strolled around the graveyard looking for targets. He spotted a vampire, and got his attention by talking to him.

"Hey there buddy. Nice night to be out, isn't it? Peaceful, quiet. No one to hear them scream. Maybe this is your lucky night." Clem started walking towards the confused vampire. "Forget about these weak little humans. You get to take a shot at me, a real demon. Not some half-breed like yourself, but the full kit-and-caboodle. Question is, will you get me before I get you? So you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?"

With that Clem pulled out a stake and dusted the vampire before it could react. The vampire found Clem's little soliloquy so absurd he wasn't even ready to put up a fight before it was too late. After it was over Clem said to himself "Wow! I did it!! I really did it!!! Kickass!" Then he did a little dance of joy.

At the coroner's office Buffy couldn't find the corpses of the four altar boys. But Father Torres's body was out on the table. It was plain as day what killed him. Buffy knew what the killer was. She just didn't know who the killer was.

When Buffy pulled into her driveway, she heard the phone ringing. Then it stopped. As she opened the door it started again. She ran and picked it up. It was Giles, calling her at 3am his time.

"Buffy listen to me. This is very serious. You must get Dawn and immediately leave town. This Gardar is incredibly dangerous. You must do as I say or something truly catastrophic will occur."

"Giles relax. I killed Gardar already," Buffy said, lying to her Watcher. "I just wanted to know what it was." And so Giles explained.

Spike was feeling a little stronger. He was standing up, singing along to the Clash's "I'm Not Down" ("I've been beat up, I've been thrown out, but I'm not down, no I'm not down), banging Gardar's right hand into the back of his couch in time to the beat. Then Buffy kicked open the door and entered.

Spike quickly turned down the music. At first he was understandably elated to see Buffy in his home. Then he looked at her face, and saw she was not happy to see him.

"How could you do this!?," she growled at him.

"Oh, you mean this?," Spike answered, holding up Gardar's paw. "Just blood, sweat and stubbornness, I guess."

"Don't you dare make jokes about this," Buffy snarled back. "You knew what was coming, and you did nothing to help Dawn."

"Did nothing!? Did nothing!! I killed the bloody thing! I saved Dawn's life!," Spike shouted back.

Buffy was too outraged to shout. "This is sickening. Out of all the disgusting things you have ever done, this goes at the top of a very long list. Looks like the soul didn't take. You're as vile as you ever were."

"Risking my life to save another person's life. That's vile in your book?," Spike responded, trying to match Buffy's outrage.

Buffy noticed Spike's complete blindness to what really mattered. "You are just like you always were. You don't help others. You only help yourself. You wanted to play hero. You wanted all the glory. It didn't matter that you were risking my sister's life, now did it?"

"Was last night the best night of Dawn's life?," Spike asked Buffy.

"What!?," Buffy asked back.

"Just answer. Was last night the best night of Dawn's life?" Buffy just stared at him in silence. "Well was it or not?"

Buffy was quiet a few more seconds. She sensed Spike was springing a trap. "Yes. That's what she told me. She had a good time, despite everything you did to ruin it for her."

"I understand why you're mad at me," Spike explained. "You just can't see the truth, can you? I didn't ruin last night for Dawn. I made it possible."

Buffy thought it was Spike who was blind to the truth. "You're more selfish than I thought. You weren't the only thing standing between Dawn and that demon, and you sure as hell know that. There was me. I would have killed that thing. But you kept it all to yourself. And what if Gardar had killed you? What would have happened to Dawn then, when it attacked her without warning, without me to protect her? Did you ever think about that?"

"Course I did," Spike responded. "And that's precisely why I did not tell you. If you knew, then Dawn probably would have known as well. And once that was the case, she wasn't going to have that much fun, now, was she?"

"She wasn't going to have that much fun if she was dead either," Buffy rebutted.

"There was no chance of that happening," Spike emphatically declared.

"No chance? Look at you! Look what that thing did to you. It practically killed you. I know you may still be in denial about this, but now that you're human, you're not as strong as you used to be. And please, it's not like you were that strong of a vampire anyway."

Spike now walked up to Buffy as if he were trying to menace her. "You've never seen my A-game, pet. What, you think you're better than those other Slayers I killed? Please! I never killed you because I was never willing to die when I fought you. When I'm in a fight, and I know that one of us is not getting out alive, I find a way. I always do."

"Until one day you don't, and you take my sister with you." Buffy countered. "You want to win the interspecies ultimate fighting championship, be my guest. But don't ever put the lives of people I love on the line during one of your pathetic ego trips."

Buffy began walking out. "Buffy wait," Spike pleaded as he grabbed her right arm from behind. Buffy jabbed her left elbow into Spike's bruised and broken ribs to make him let go. He bent forward and groaned in pain before saying "please, just listen to me for a second." Buffy turned around to hear what other pigheaded comments Spike was going to make.

"Ever since Dawn came here, she's had to live in almost constant fear for her life. And for most of that time she was powerless to do anything to protect herself. You know this. You know what she's been through, the toll it's taken on her. I just wanted her to have one night when she didn't have to live in fear. One carefree night when she could have all the happiness she so desperately deserves. That's why I did what I did. To give her that."

"Dawn never asked you to give her anything," Buffy said before walking out and slamming the door behind her.

Around 2am Xander was woken up by some very loud noise. It appeared to be coming from his living room. He went out to his living room and found Connor pogoing to the Kinks' "I Need You." (What better line to capture Connor's feelings for Dawn than "I need you more than anybody else has needed anyone before.") Xander walked over and turned the volume way down.

Xander then ejected the disc. "This isn't one of mine. Where'd you get this?"

"Spike let me borrow it."

Perfect. Just what Xander wanted to hear. He was too tired to try to give the "Stay Away From Spike" lecture he had been preparing in his head for the last two weeks. So he put the disk back in, turned it back on, took out his headphones, and plugged them in. "When you want to listen to something when people are sleeping, Steven, use these. That way, you won't wake up the entire building."

"Thanks," Connor said. He put them on and went back to listening.

Xander went back to bed. After closing the bedroom door, Xander analyzed what he had just done. "I just told Steven to turn that awful racket down. Oh no, I am Middle-Aged Man."

That morning Buffy saw an update of the vampire church killings on the television. "Shocking new developments regarding yesterday's murders of Father Ernesto Torres and four altar boys at the Church of the Blessed Virgin. Monsignor Phillip Denonville, who officiated a noon Mass at that church only hours before the bodies were discovered, has gone missing. In addition to this, we have just received word that four men have come forward, claiming that Monsignor Denonville sexually molested them two decades ago when they were altar boys. Regarding these new accusations, a spokesman for the Diocese had no comment."

Clem ran into Spike's crypt at 9am, waking him up. "Bloody hell, Clem, you're making a habit out of this aren't you?"

"I got a big problem Spike."

"What, something's after you?"

"No. The problem is me. I felt so stoked after we killed Gardar the other night. Too stoked. Last night I went out and killed three vampires."

"I don't see a problem with that."

"The thing is, I'm not a killer. I've never killed a vampire before in my life. But now I need to kill. I need to feel that rush. I'm addicted."

"You're addicted to vampire slaying?"

"Not exactly. I'm addicted to killing. Bad guys, of course. Now, killing bad guys is a good thing. Sure, I know that. But I have this sickening feeling in my tummy telling me I'm going to kill and kill until I face something too strong for me to kill, and then I'll end up dead. And it's not hard to find something that can rip me limb from limb. Those vampires I got last night didn't put up much of a fight. They were too shocked to see a floppy-skinned harmless demon coming after them."

Spike thought about this. "I see, I see. You've had a taste and you're hooked. You think you're invincible."

"No no, no no. I ain't invincible. That's why I'm worried."

"Right now you know you're not invincible. But when you went after those vampires you felt invincible, like nothing could touch you, right?"

"I guess I did."

"Of course you did. If you were afraid, you would never have gone after them. Remember, fear is a good thing. And you were very brave against Gardar, and you defeated him, so you have nothing to prove. Remember that next time you feel the urge to go Charles Bronson on the undead. You've had your victory. You've proven your toughness, mate. Now savor it."

"Savor it. Revel in past glories. I like that, Spike. I'll try it. Like, next time I'm watching The A-Team,' I can laugh at them, since they're only pretending to save the day, and I've done the real thing. Yeah. I'm a hero. I can bask in my own glory. So next time I want to fight, I'll bask instead. By the way, what are those dogs doing outside your place?"

"What dogs?," Spike asked as he went out to take a look. He saw two dogs tied to a tree outside his front door. He could see the address of their owner on their collars. So he walked them home, where he found police cars and yellow tape.

"Hey officer, what happened?," Spike asked.

"The family that lives in this house was murdered three blocks from here."

"Oh no. Oh my God," Spike said. He let go of the dogs' leashes and walked away. The dead family. The dogs. It meant only one thing to him. "Drusilla."

That night, Monsignor Denonville paid a visit to the house of Daniel Parnell, a man in his early thirties. Parnell opened the door. Denonville made his pitch. "Danny, I just want to talk. I need forgiveness. I need to atone for what I did to you. Please, let me come in."

Daniel stepped just outside his front door. Denonville stepped back to the edge of the porch. "It's Jesus you ask for forgiveness. I'm not Jesus. I can't forgive you. Twenty years, that's a long time to figure out that what you did was wrong. And you're not sorry, are you? You've just gotten worse with age. I heard about the ones you killed yesterday. The police are gonna find you. You're finally going where you belong."

Daniel was about to turn around, go inside and call the police. Denonville knew this. He grabbed Daniel, growled and threw Daniel onto his front lawn. He put on his vampire face. "You were never much of a fighter were you, Danny Boy? At least the others tried to resist. You were so soft, so gentle. That's why you were always my favorite."

Daniel got up. Denonville walked away from the house and towards Daniel. He growled again and charged him. Daniel grabbed his right arm and used Denonville's momentum to throw him forward. Denonville landed on Daniel's white picket fence, and turned to dust.

Daniel was understandably shocked. He had killed this man. But then again, he knew men didn't vanish into thin air. Whatever Denonville was, Daniel knew he was no more. He looked up and down his street, just to make sure nobody saw what happened, and quickly walked back inside.

The store closed shortly after dark and Spike headed home nervously. Connor met up with him along the way. Spike did not want him around at this moment. After all, if Dru showed up she'd blow Spike's cover.

"Oh, hi Steven. Uh, I don't think you should be out here with me. You heard about all those killings yesterday? I just don't think it's safe."

Now that sounded ridiculous to Connor. "It's a vampire, right? What have I got to fear from a single vampire?"

"Steven, there's a lot you don't know about vampires."

"I know how to kill them. What else do I need to know about vampires?"

Drusilla stood at the top of a ridge about 100 yards from Connor and Spike. She held in her right hand a teenage girl she had just killed and drained. In a normal speaking voice which she knew Connor would hear from that distance, Dru said "care for a taste of schoolgirl, Connor? Your daddy always did."

Connor heard these words and charged at Dru, not fully comprehending he meaning of what she had just told him. Spike looked and saw the female figure in black. He knew it was Dru. He ran after Connor, but of course couldn't keep up. After all, Spike no longer moved like a vampire.

When Connor got close Dru tossed the girl's corpse behind her, down the other side of the hill. She held up her right index and middle fingers in front of Connor's eyes, made him look in her eyes, and mesmerized him. Connor was ill-prepared to confront a vampire with such formidable mental powers. "That's a good boy" Dru told him before kicking Connor back down the hill.

At that point Spike arrived. Connor rose and tried to charge Dru again, but Spike held him back. Dru walked down the slope to confront them. "Hello brother. Hello son," Dru said to the two of them.

"Oh, poor Spike. You don't know the truth, do you? It's so poetic, isn't it, my dear William? My boy, and Darla's and Angel's boy, together. Neither knowing there are family. Neither knowing we are family. Go ahead Spike. Look at Connor. Doesn't he have the face of an Angel?" And with that Dru vanished down the other side of the ridge, leaving plenty of revelations in her wake.

Spike and Connor eyed each other suspiciously. Spike saw a twinkle of violence in Connor's eyes, and started to slowly back away. "I think it is apparent that each of us knows something we need to tell the other. Let's just talk this through." Connor didn't look ready to talk, so Spike bravely volunteered, though he kept retreating as he talked. 

"Okay, I'll begin. That vampire, the one who stopped you in your tracks. Her name's Drusilla. She was sired by Angel. Angel was sired by Darla. And me, well, this may sound unbelievable, but I was sired by Drusilla."

Connor stopped pursuing Spike. He was too shocked to believe what Spike was hinting at, so Spike stopped merely hinting. "I was vampire, for a century. A few months before I met you, I endured a series of trials to regain my soul and earn back my humanity."

It took Connor a few seconds to respond. "You were a vampire?"

"Yes, Steven."

"You were a vampire!" And with that Steven knocked Spike to the ground with a right hook. He got on top of him. "You were a vampire!," he yelled again as he hit Spike a few more times.

Spike grabbed Connor's arms. "Steven please, it's me. It's me."

Connor calmed down. He looked at Spike for a few seconds. Then he got off Spike and helped him up. Connor put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm didn't mean to hurt you. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking."

"It's fine," Spike told Connor. "I mean, who ever heard of a vampire becoming a person? That's almost as weird as, say, a person whose parents are vampires. Wouldn't you agree, Connor?"

Connor got the hint. He told his story. Actually, he told Holtz's version of his story. "200 years ago, Angelus and Darla killed the children of a vampire hunter Holtz. In order to punish them, God sent Holtz into our time. He witnessed my birth, which resulted in Darla's death. With God's help, he rescued me when I was a baby from Angelus and took me to Quor-toth, where I could be safe. 16 years later, we found our way back to this world. Holtz, my true father, told me only a few weeks had past in this world since he took me to Quor-toth.

"Angelus found Holtz and killed him. With the help of Justine, a woman who had helped Holtz rescue me from Angelus when I was a baby, I locked Angelus in a box, which I dropped into the ocean. A few months later, someone freed him. We Angelus back, I no longer felt safe in that place. So I left and found my way here."

Spike needed a moment to absorb this all. "Time travel. Alternative dimensions. Vampire offspring. Dear Lord, I feel like I'm trapped in an episode of Passions.' That's quite a story, Steven. I don't know what to say except, you must tell Buffy. And Dawn, as well. You need to tell then about Drusilla. And they deserve to know who you really are."

"But she's a Vampire Slayer. What will she think of me, the child of vampires?"

Spike smiled. He knew all too well what she'd think of it. "Steven, I think you'll find that Buffy can be astoundingly understanding on matters such as this. She won't be mad. At you. I promise."

Connor knew that now that his secret was out he might as well come clean. Besides, he had to warn Buffy about Drusilla.

His real worry was how Dawn would take the news. As Connor walked, he thought of some words he heard in a Kinks song the previous night:

"darling you know that I love you true

do anything that you want me to

confess all my sins like you want me to

there's one thing that I will say to you

I'm not like everybody else

I'm not like everybody else"

So Connor went to Buffy's house, where she found her in the living room with Dawn, Xander and Willow. "Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Xander, there is something I really must tell you about myself. For too long, I have kept a secret from you . . ."

". . . and sent him to the bottom of the sea. But he rose, and I didn't feel safe. So I left that place, and found my way here. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you the truth sooner."

Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander sat on the couch, their mouths wide open. They didn't speak, or even move a muscle for about sixty seconds. Finally, Buffy felt compelled to break the ice. "No, no, I understand. I forgive you, totally, Totally. The thing is, I know Angel. I met him when I moved to this town six years ago . . ."

". . . we knew then that we could never be truly, truly happy together. So he left for Los Angeles three years ago. We haven't talked in over a year."

Now it was Connor's turn to stare in open-mouthed silence. But he didn't. After everything he had been through in his own life, Buffy's travails were nothing. "That perfect happiness thing you mentioned. That's probably how it happened. That's probably how he lost he soul, became Angelus, and killed my father. When I saw him, he was in love. With a half-demon named Cordelia."

Buffy and Xander stared at each other in horror. "A demon? What, did she have, green skin and a tail?," Xander asked.

"No, definitely not. She looked like a woman. A very pretty woman, actually. She said she became part demon so she could help people. I believed all demons were evil, so I tried to kill her. But she touched me, and she glowed."

"She glowed!?," Xander asked incredulously.

"Yes. like a star. Like a ball of energy." Dawn started to hum nervously and shift her eyes away from Connor. "I was filled with the light. And when it stopped, I no longer wanted to kill her."

"Can you excuse me for a moment," Buffy told Connor as she retreated into the kitchen. Xander and Willow quickly followed. Connor looked at Dawn. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I just feared you wouldn't want to be around me. I pray you can understand and forgive me. I just didn't want you to think I was a monster."

"Actually Steven, there's something I need to tell you. See, I'm also different. I'm not like other girls . . ."

Buffy was irate. "Cordelia?!! Angel loves Cordy! Angel loves Cordy? This is insane!," she yelled as she banged her hands into the kitchen counter, shaking the pots and pans on the counter a few feet away."

"And Cordelia's a demon," Xander said, joining in the shock-fest. "Cordelia's a demon. Why does that turn me on. Why? I'm sick, I need help."

"I just don't know how any of this could happen," Buffy said to Willow. "Forget about Cordelia. Actually, that's impossible right now, but let's pretend for a moment. He had sex with Darla"

Xander interrupted. "Darla, who I myself saw turned to dust. And then she's back, like it never happened. What is it, you sleep with Angel, you get a free resurrection?"

Willow and Buffy realized that Xander was off on his own tangent. So they ignored him. Buffy continued talking to Willow. "How could he have sex with Darla, like two years ago, and then when I saw him a few months later, he was fine, he still has his soul. What happened to the curse?"

Willow could only think of one explanation. "Buffy, maybe when I did the spell to give Angel his soul back, I did it wrong. I was a pretty amateur Wiccan back then, way over my head. What if I gave him his soul but didn't give him the curse?

It took Buffy about three seconds to understand the ramifications of this. She grabbed Willow, and started shaking her. "You mean when he came back he wasn't cursed! All that time senior year there was no perfect happiness curse? And you didn't tell me!" The last four years flashed before Buffy's eyes. All that time she could have been happy with Angel. All that time they spent apart, because they thought it was the only way.

Willow grabbed Buffy's wrists and Buffy stopped shaking her. "I didn't know! I didn't have any idea! I mean, there was only one way to find out, and did you want to take that risk?"

Willow meant this as a rhetorical question. But Buffy didn't know how to answer it. Meanwhile, Xander knew that he preferred Angel as a eunuch. He knew there must be another explanation. And he came up with it.

"Both of you are forgetting something : sex does not always equal perfect happiness. I mean, remember me and Faith? Buffy, remember you and that sleazeball Parker? So maybe Angel can have meaningless sex. Darla was a soulless monster, so he slept with her, but of course he could never loved her."

Xander didn't realize the double meaning of his last line. Buffy was all too familiar with the concept of loveless sex with a soulless monster. Willow also missed the double meaning. But she was pleasantly surprised with Xander's penetrating insight. "You're right Xander. That is so true. That's probably exactly what happened. But if that's the case, and if Steven was right about Angel loving Cordelia, why would he and her, you know? I mean, Cordy knows about the curse."

The thought of Angel and Cordy getting it on sickened all three of them. Once again, Xander had to explain away that which he could not bring himself to accept. "They wouldn't have. She wouldn't have. Cordelia's selfish, but not that selfish. She wouldn't risk recreating a monster for one roll in the hay."

Buffy agreed. "And Angel, he never would. He'd never sleep with Cordelia. I mean, she's Cordelia! That's like me sleeping with Xander!"

"Excuse me, I am in the room!," Xander yelled back.

"Sorry Xander, I didn't mean it as an insult. I mean, I love you. But not like that. You accept that. I was just trying to show how ridiculous this whole Angel-Cordy lovebird thing is."

"Well, maybe if I was part demon you'd be attracted to me," Xander quipped. "You do seem to go for that in a guy."

Buffy was about to slap Xander when Willow grabbed her from behind. "Stop! Let's take a deep, deep breath, and calm down. We're getting way, way off topic. This isn't about us, it's about Angel and Steven."

Buffy calmed down. "I'm sorry Xander. I was out of line. What I meant to say was that Angel would never risk that. If he does love Cordelia, he could never do that to her. He could never risk going evil and hurting her and everyone else he cares about."

"So you're saying Steven's wrong?," Willow asked. Then she answered her own question. "I mean, it's not like Angel would have to go bad to kill Holtz. That guy stole his child from him. He never got to see his son grow up. I think any of us would want revenge if we were in Angel's position."

"But Angel wouldn't," Buffy said. "He wouldn't kill a person. Not even someone as despicable as Holtz."

Xander took offense to this characterization of Holtz. "What do you mean despicable? Let's put ourselves in his shoes. Angel murders his wife and children. He wants revenge. Wouldn't you? Somehow he goes all Rip Van Winkle. When he wakes up he finds that the man who murdered his children has a child of his own. So he takes Angel's child, to make up for what Angel took from him, to let Angel know a little of the pain he feels. What, you want this guy who loses his family to get no justice?"

"That's not justice. That's vengeance," Buffy told Xander.

Xander begged to differ. "No it's not, not in this case. Vengeance is when you hurt someone more than they deserve so you can feel better. Justice, well, justice is when you give them exactly what they deserve."

Willow jumped in to break up this latest argument. "Am I the only one who notices that we keep drifting horribly off-topic? Now is not the time to debate the merits of child kidnapping! There is a 16 year-old boy in the other room whom we all care about. A boy who lives with you, Xander. A boy who fights by your side, Buffy, and who's dating your sister. A 16 year-old boy who a little over a year ago hadn't even been born yet. Right now, we are the only family he's got. We are the only people he trusts in this entire world. This isn't about our misgivings about Angel or Cordelia. This is about Steven."

Buffy and Xander took this to heart. They realized how selfish they had been acting. Then Willow burst her bubble of self-righteous indignation. "Still guys, even I have to admit, Angel and glow-Cordy, pretty hard to believe. I never saw that coming."

"Love's a funny thing," Buffy said, looking off into the distance. Someone had told her that a few years ago. Actually, that someone was Spike. Then Buffy remembered what else mattered – Drusilla. "Oh no! With all this shocking breaking news to chew over, I completely forgot about Drusilla. I better go out and get her before she gets to anyone else." Buffy left out the back door.

Dawn had finished telling Connor the truth about her origins. It brought them even closer together. They both had felt so alone, so isolated. Now each of them knew they had a kindred spirit, a soul mate. Connor believed Dawn was the only person who could truly understand him. Dawn believed Connor was the only person who could truly understand her. They were now sitting side-by-side on the couch, staring into each other's eyes, Connor's left hand in Dawn's right hand, Dawn's left hand in Connor's right hand.

After about a minute of silent staring, Connor began to talk. "When I first saw you, I knew you were special. I knew you were the only girl I could ever love. I believed that God meant for us to be together. Now I know that my faith was true. Everything that has ever happened in my life has led me to you."

After taking a few seconds to absorbed the magnitude of the moment, Dawn responded. "Steven, you've made me happier than I ever thought I could be. You've brought so much joy and meaning to my life. I love you Steven. I love you."

This is what Connor had been waiting to hear. This was the moment when Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and the cannons from Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" would have been playing in his mind. But he didn't know these pieces of music. What he heard instead was Madonna's "Crazy for You," because Xander liked to listen to Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection." That would have to do for now.

Willow and Xander walked in at this point. Willow asked Dawn if she had any homework to do. Xander said he had to be heading home, and left with Connor. As they walked to the car, Xander said "So, Steven or Connor or whatever your name now is, tell me about how you tried to kill Angel. And please don't leave out any details."

Spike was pacing in his crypt, trying to come to terms with everything he had just learned. He put on some music to remind him of the old days – the Velvet Underground's "Venus In Furs:"

"kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather

shiny leather in the dark

taste the whip, in love not given lightly

taste the whip, now bleed for me"

It was perfect entrance music for Drusilla. Spike could sense her presence outside his door. "You may enter Dru. At my house, you are always welcome." Spike turned off the music, and turned to face his Dru. He broke the ice with some small talk.

"I heard about what you did in that church. The old confessional gambit. Always loved that one, myself. But the altar boys, that was just overkill."

"They weren't mine," Dru explained. "After I killed the Father, another Father showed up. So decided to have some fun, and I sired him. I watched as he performed Mass, gave Communion, told all the good little boys and girls to come on up and drink their blood so they could live forever. A vampire wearing the collar. It was such great fun to watch."

Spike went with flattery. "That's what I love best about you baby. Your sense of humor."

"He's already gone. I felt it earlier tonight. Wasn't exactly one of my best creations. Not like you. He was good for a little laughter. But I haven't been feeling so jolly lately," Dru replied. "And I don't think you have either. Your gifts, the gifts I gave you, have been stolen." Dru walked over and caressed his bruises. "Look what they've done to you. All scratched and bruised and broken. You poor, poor thing." Then she put her head to his chest. "Your heart is pounding, and it screams for me to end its misery, to end your misery. Mummy's here to make you all better. Care to see what it's like to be born again?"

Dru looked Spike in his eyes. "They don't accept you, the humans. They don't want you. Your little Buffy wants nothing to do with you. You thought she would love you if you changed what you were. But she doesn't. Because you can't change what you are."

"You're wrong. They do accept me," Spike said defensively and without conviction.

"Connor does," Dru replied. "And you know why? Because he's family. He's blood."

Spike knew what Dru wanted with Connor. "So that's what you're here for? Angel's boy."

"Our boy, Spike. Our boy. We'll start over. Finally, we can be mummy and daddy. He'll be our treasure, our jewel."

Spike encouraged Dru's dreams. "You should see him fight, Dru. He's amazing. Far stronger than his father ever was. And vicious, more vicious than any human. You give him the deluxe package, and there's no telling what havoc that boy will wreak."

"It will be like before, only so much better," Dru told Spike.

"Yes, like before," Spike added ruefully. "See, honey, that's the thing. I want this, more than anything. I want my life back. But if I am going to be with you, love, you must do one thing for me."

"Name it, Spike."

"Kill Angel."

Dru was taken aback. "Kill daddy! But I had such big plans for him."

"That's precisely the problem, baby," Spike explained. "He tends to spoil my fun, to ruin our fun. We don't need him. He'll just get in the way. I won't share you anymore. It's me or him. Choose."

"Kill my sire? What kind of monster to you think I am."

"I didn't say you had to kill him. Here's how I see it. You make me what I was. You make Connor what he's destined to be. We take Connor to LA, where he kills Angel. You get it?"

Dru flashed a big smile. "Oooh Spike, you always had the best plans! The son, killing the father."

"What can I say," Spike joked. "It runs in Connor's family. He'd be following in his father's footsteps."

"My boy, my dear sweet boy. You're a genius. And I need you, as much as you need me. I've been so lonely."

"I never want you to be lonely," Spike told her.

"And now, all the puzzle pieces are coming back together," she responded.

"I'll never let you be lonely again. That I promise you, Dru baby," Spike pledged.

Dru kissed Spike passionately. He kissed back just as passionately. They put their arms around each other. After about 15 seconds, Dru took her lips off Spike's, put on her vampire face, and bit Spike in the neck. He did nothing to resist her. A few seconds later, Drusilla was nothing more than dust.

Buffy was marching towards Spike's crypt. She wanted to see if he knew where Drusilla was. But that was only her pretext for seeing him. She had been hit with so much tonight, and had yet to make sense of it all. She was so confused. But there was a nagging thought in her brain she could not get rid of. Angel had moved on. Maybe she should as well.

Buffy entered Spike's crypt. She saw that the entire front of his body was covered in ash. Spike was frozen. He hadn't moved since killing Dru. He stood there like a dazed, dusty statue.

Buffy didn't know why she did what she did next. It was instinctive, done without thought or conscious intention. She ran to Spike, put her arms around him, and hugged him tight. He hugged her tight.

Spike started to cry. To put it more accurately, he started to bawl uncontrollably. Tears of sorrow for losing Dru. Tears of joy for Buffy giving him another chance. After about two minutes, Spike stopped crying. For the next three minutes, Spike and Buffy held each other without saying a word.

Then Buffy let go, turned around, and went home. She was covered in Drusilla's dust.


	7. Chapter Seven: The Price

Buffy finally gives Spike a chance. She thinks she may even love him. But don't expect a happy ending. As Spike tells Buffy, "with us, nothing is easy." Meanwhile, Dawn and Connor have their first fight. Also, Spike and Xander each try to come to terms with the knowledge that Angel is Connor's father. And, of course, scary demons galore.

Finally, the teenage lovebirds could be alone. No parents, no brothers and sisters, no friends to get in the way. Marcus and Emily were all alone in Emily's bedroom. They had been waiting for this moment. And then the moment was dashed. They heard a car in the driveway. Emily looked out her window of her family's one-story ranch house. "It's my dad!," she told Marcus.

Marcus was not about to get caught in Emily's bedroom by her father. He had an older sister, and knew how protective fathers could be of their teenage daughters. He went to the window at the back of Emily's room and opened it. "Come on, he won't find us," he told his girlfriend. He took her by the hand and they both went out the window into Emily's back yard. Then they ran into the pine forest behind the property. When they were deep enough in the woods to be safe, they stopped.

"All clear. All alone. No one to catch us," Marcus told Emily. "Gotta tell ya, I really like the danger. Makes every moment even better." Marcus then grabbed Emily and kissed her. She was also a little turned on by the danger. And there was something romantic about the two of them, in the dark, out in the forest primeval.

But then about thirty seconds later Emily heard a howl. She stopped kissing Marcus and looked worried. "Marcus, I heard something. It sounded like a wolf."

"It's probably just a coyote. I see them in my backyard all the time. They're harmless," Marcus responded as he kissed Emily's neck and tried to get her back in the mood. "There's nothing out here to be scared of," Marcus added as he nibbled her earlobes. "Except maybe your father, and he ain't gonna find us way out here."

Emily acquiesced. She knew it was childish to fear things that go bump in the night. She went back to kissing Marcus. But right when things got all hot and steamy and moany, she heard two more howls. They were much louder than the first howl she had heard.

Emily pushed Marcus away. "Now you had to hear that. That was no coyote," she told him.

Marcus still did not want to believe they were in danger. "Emily, I know we're in the woods in the dark, which makes even me a little wiggish. But we're not exactly in the wilderness. I mean, look, we can see the lights from the houses. This is the suburbs. People don't get attacked by wild animals in the suburbs."

At that moment a beast leaped up onto Marcus's chest and knocked him to the ground. It quickly ripped open his throat and sunk its jaws into his chest. Emily screamed, and a few seconds later a second beast came up and bit her in the thigh. It held on and dragged her away. She tried to hold onto the tree next to her, but it was no use. The beast dragged her away, her fingernails desperately clawing the dirt.

The next morning, Buffy and Dawn were in the kitchen eating breakfast. Buffy had a question for her sister. "Over the last few days, you've been a bit, well, glowy is the best word I can come up with. There's a new bounce in your step. Well, more than a bounce. More like you're walking on air. Something you want to tell me?"

"Really, you noticed?," Dawn answered. "I didn't know it was that obvious. But, yes, if you must know, something has changed. I'm in love with Steven."

"That's really amazing," Buffy sarcastically replied. "A couple days ago, you were pretty passionate about telling me you didn't love Steven. So what changed? No wait, I know what changed. You found out what Steven was. Guess that kind of thing runs in this family."

Dawn couldn't disagree more. "Please Buffy, get over yourself. The world does not revolve around you. Now, I know you have the hots for guys that bite. I'm not criticizing. What a demon and a consenting adult – or even a consenting non-adult, as was once the case with you – do behind closed doors is their own business. But in case you haven't noticed, Steven's human. I don't care who his parents are. I mean, technically, I don't even have parents."

Buffy tried to cool things down. She decided to let Dawn's little dig at her love life slide. "I see it now. You're right. Knowing Steven's past didn't make you love him. You always loved him. You just never admitted it to yourself. I say something about him which you take to be an insult, and you turn violently protective. Like the time last month you knocked my head into that tree. You attack anyone who impugns him, even your own sister. That's love."

Dawn still disagreed. "No, that's not love. That's just letting people know when they should shut up. You were on the right track before. It was last Monday night I fell in love with him. Not because of the vampire stuff. But because, like me, Steven was thrown into a world he didn't feel a part of. He knows what it's like to feel truly alone, to believe that no one can understand you. He's felt exactly what I've felt. We understand each other like no one else can. Realizing we had this bond, this amazing bond, that's what made me love him."

Of course, much of what Dawn said could apply to any teenage couple. All teenagers feel alone and believe no one can understand them. And teen love is all about believing no one, not your friends, not your parents, not your siblings, can understand you like your lover can. Of course, the circumstances of Dawn's and Connor's lives had astronomically magnified these ordinary teen emotions. 

That afternoon, Connor walked into Sunnydale High School around the time he knew the school day ended. Hundreds of students streamed into the halls. How to find only one of them was the problem, especially since Connor did not know where Dawn's locker was. He walked up and down the halls. The girls turned their heads to get a look, but he didn't notice them. Finally, he saw her. She was alone. Janice and Brandon were off in a certain janitor's closet Brandon had recently discovered.

Knowing Dawn loved him had made Connor bold, made him feel like nothing could stand in his way. Made him enter a large building where all the noisy kids and the frequently ringing bells scared him. Connor walked up to Dawn from behind, put his hands over her eyes, and asked "guess who?"

Dawn of course knew right away who it was. But she was a bit surprised. Such brazenness was not typical of Connor. "Steven, you're here! Why are you here? Please don't get me wrong, I love that you're here, but I've never seen you here before."

Steven said something he heard in a Kinks song. "I was so tired. Tired of waiting. Tired of waiting for you."

"I missed you too," Dawn replied. She grabbed his head and kissed him on the lips. "So, Steven, we haven't been out much in the daytime. What do you want to do?"

"I thought maybe we could go for a little walk," Steven replied, in a manner which made it apparent that "walking" was not what he had in mind.

"I could go for a nice walk right about now," Dawn said, knowing exactly what Connor had in mind. She closed her locker and put her backpack over her shoulder. Then she had a better idea. "Steven, can you carry this for me?" He could. And he did.

As the two of them walked out hand-in-hand some of the girls looked at Dawn and Connor in disbelief. He seemed so out of her league to them. Some of the guys started looking as well. Not to check out Connor (that was only a couple of the guys). But to look at Dawn a little differently than they had before. They noticed Dawn was in demand, which made her seem more alluring.

Janice and Brandon stepped out of the closet. "I told you school let out. Where's Dawn?," Janice said.

Brandon spotted her. "She's over there with Steven. I'm guessing that right now she doesn't want us around." A grinning Brandon opened the closet again and pulled the smiling Janice back in.

Lots of noise came from inside. It sounded like stuff falling. "Ow! Wait! Let me find the light," Brandon said. He turned the bulb on. "Okay, this is our spot, right over here." Then he turned the light back off.

Dawn and Connor made their way past the athletic fields. The starting football players who had the last period free had been out practicing for forty minutes. Connor looked down and saw what looked to him like heavily-armored men training for some sort of hand-to-hand combat. He put down Dawn's backpack and ran down the hill and onto the field. "Steven, no! You can't do that!," Dawn yelled. But it was too late.

The five starting offensive linemen were pushing a tackling sled which their coach stood on, urging them on. After being pushed 30 yards the sled ground to a halt. "Come on men!" the coach yelled. "You expect to win the county championships with that lollygagging! You don't think the players at Lincoln High are busting their butts while you suck wind!"

Connor walked up to the coach. "Can I try?," he innocently asked. The coach looked at this five foot six, 110 pound boy like he was nuts. "Can I try?," he asked again.

The five lineman started laughing. "Let's see if you can push around my jock strap first," one of them joked.

Connor looked serious. The coach thought this might provide his boys with a little comic relief. "Sure you can try son. Go ahead," he told Connor, smirking.

Connor stood in front of the middle of the sled. He put his shoulder to it, and ran. He drove the sled 20 yards back at an astoundingly rapid pace. Then he stopped and pushed the sled away. With this push, he sent the sled sliding an additional 15 yards. "Thanks. That was fun," he said to the coach. The coach was understandably stunned. This little runt had outperformed 5 linemen who weighed a combined 1200 pounds.

Connor started to walk away. The starting defensive nose tackle had just arrived on the field. He was going to teach this interloper a lesson. He strapped on his helmet. "Hey boy!," he yelled at Connor. The he ran right for him.

At the last minute Connor noticed the heavily armored man charging him. He bent his knees and drove his shoulder into the nose tackle as he was trying to run over Connor. Instead, Connor was unaffected by the collision, and the nose tackled was knocked to the dirt with tremendous force. Connor looked down at him. "Sorry about that. I didn't notice you were in my way." Connor reached down his right hand and grabbed the 250 pound player's left arm, pulling him back to his feet as if he were a toddler.

Connor walked back to Dawn. The other football players got out of his way, giving him a clear path. Among those who got out of his way were Alexandra's boyfriend, who was starting quarterback, and Sophie's boyfriend, who was starting free safety. Dawn laughed. A lot of girls she knew wanted to date one of the starters on the varsity football team. Her boyfriend could beat up the team's entire starting line-up. "I like that game," Connor said as he approached Dawn, picked up her backpack, and walked off with her.

"You really shouldn't do that," Dawn tried to explain. "It's not polite."

They walked to a tranquil spot in the woods, a spot which was about a mile from the spot where Emily and Marcus were killed and eaten the previous night. Of course they were not yet aware of these killings.

Connor put down the backpack and explained the meaning of this location. "This is where I slept, before I moved in with Xander. The night I first saw you, I came back here, put my head against this tree, and thought of you all night. You were all that mattered to me. You are still all that matters to me."

"Except now you can do more than just think about me," Dawn replied suggestively. Then she put her hands on Connor's chest and pushed him back into the tree. The entire Sunnydale football team couldn't make this guy budge an inch. But Dawn could throw him around like a rag doll. Connor rather liked it when she did. When his back hit the tree, he smiled. Dawn leaped at him, he put his arms around her, and they kissed. This was why Connor became so bold, why he wouldn't wait for patrolling to have a chance to be with Dawn.

"Steven's parents are what!?," Anya asked Spike over at the Magic Shop.

"Vampires," Spike responded.

Anya was digging a little deeper. "I know that! That's not what's so amazing. They're not just vampires. They're vampires who were kind of like parents to you. I mean, you've always had this whole Oedipal thing with Angel."

This hurt Spike. "Oh come on, that's rubbish. Bloody hell! That's sick, twisted, rubbish."

"Like you've never done anything sick and twisted," Anya joked. "You can't deny it. You wanted to kill Angel – your father – so you could have Drusilla – your mother – all to yourself. Your whole life since you came to Sunnydale has been one long series of unresolved daddy issues."

Spike did not want to hear this. "You don't know the first thing about vampires. Mother, father – that's bollocks. That's not how it works. There's no parenting. It's not a family. It's a club. Your sire is just the one who sponsored you for membership."

Anya thought this was a little shallow. "Oh, I get. Becoming a vampire is just like getting into a country club, a country club with eternal lifetime membership, and the membership fee is your soul. Now that's – what's that crude term you like to use? – bollocks."

Spike defended his arguments. "Sure, it does sound bloody ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as all your talk about vampire families. I killed Dru. Does that make me guilty of matricide? Come on!"

"No it doesn't," Anya answered, appearing to agree with Spike. You're human. Drusilla is no longer you mother. Buffy is."

Spike took a few seconds to absorb the absurdity of this. "Okay, now I know you're not just off your rocker. You're certifiably bonkers. Now how, just how, do you explain this nonsense."

"It's not nonsense," Anya told Spike. "It's sense. It's rather good sense. You became human because of Buffy. Dru was your sire because if it wasn't for her you would never have become a vampire. Buffy is you sire because if it wasn't for her you would never have become human."

Spike resisted her logic. "In case you haven't noticed, Buffy had nothing to do with me becoming human. I did that on my own, thank you very much. And she wasn't crazy about the whole beating heart thing when I came back. She kind of never wanted to see me again. Some sire!"

Anya dropped the subject, with a parting shot. "Fine, right-o, I get your point. You are incapable of understanding my brilliant, penetrating reason. No problem. I will drop this topic, rather than overburden your puny little non-genius brain."

This was so hyperbolic Spike did not even feel the need to respond. "Anya, the thing is, the fact that Steven's parents are vampires I knew very well is not the most shocking thing about him. Not by a longshot. Apparently, your massive genius brain failed to do a little simple arithmetic. It failed to ask a rather obvious question: if Angel has a 16 year-old son, why the bloody hell have we never heard a thing about him?"

"Yes, that is odd," Anya responded. "I was too busy tormenting you by channeling Sigmund Freud to think of that."

Spike explained. "The reason why we have never heard a thing about Steven is because he was born one year ago."

"What was it, his special vamp genes made him grow faster?," Anya asked.

"Not even close," Spike answered. "Sometime this past Spring, when our Steven was still a little baby, he was taken from Angel and sent to another dimension. 16 years later, he returned. It had only been a month or so in our world."

"Ah, yes, dimensional travel," Anya commented. "I should have thought of that, because I've done a little cross-dimensional travel myself. The time differences can be quite amazing. Of course, as a Vengeance Demon, it meant nothing to me, since I was immortal and all."

"So you're familiar with the whole concept," Spike replied. "Good, cause I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. You ever been to Quor-toth?"

Anya was holding a roll of quarters, about to bang it into the counter to break the wrapper. When she heard these words, she slammed the roll into the counter and quarters flew in all directions. "Is that where Steven grew up?"

"I think that's what he said. So you know of the place."

"Yes. I've heard of it. Never been there. It's supposed to be impossible to travel there from this dimension. For a reason. It's the dimension that is so terrifying even demons can barely bring themselves to speak its name. To be sent there, as a baby. I can't imagine what Steven's been through. If he survived there 16 years, he couldn't have gone alone."

"He told me he was taken there by a man name Holtz," Spike said.

"A mortal human man?," Anya asked.

"Yes, of course," Spike answered. "Remember, this Holtz died before Steven came here."

"My God, my God," a stunned Anya muttered. "That's miracle. For a human being to raise a baby to be a man in that place is unthinkable. It's like walking across Antarctica stark-naked. But Steven's here, so it must have happened. My God."

"Explains it lot, you have to admit," Spike added. "I mean, that must be why he's so tough, why he has no fear. I saw him fight that dragon. It was like he was playing cricket, and hitting sixes off every pitch. He killed that thing without even getting a scratch on him. And this Quor-toth thing, that explains his whole raw meat feast afterwards."

Finally, Anya agreed with Spike. "Yes, yes, it would. Steven would have had to fight, and hunt, the horrible monsters that populated that place, probably since he learned to walk. It's the savagest of places. Honestly, I'm surprised he turned out so normal. It's amazing he didn't come out of that place as a savage himself."

About an hour-and-a-half after they arrived in the woods, Dawn let go of Connor. He was rather surprised. "Is something wrong? Is it something I did?," he asked her.

"No. No, of course not," Dawn replied. "But it's getting late."

"And you have something better to do?," Connor arrogantly asked. Getting all this action had made him a little cocky.

"It's not like that. It's just, I'm supposed to meet Janice at my house in a few minutes. If she goes there and I don't show up, that would be really rude. She's my best friend."

"And what am I, something less important?," Connor brashly asked.

"I love you Steven. You know that. You make me so happy, I never like saying goodbye to you. But you're not the only person I care about. I love this. I love us. But I have to have a life outside of this relationship."

"What we have, this relationship, it is my life," Connor told Dawn, trying to play the I-love-you-more-than-you-love-me game.

Dawn decided to placate her lovesick man. "I'm not going anywhere. We'll see each other later tonight," Dawn told Connor as she put her hands on his chest. "Come by round ten. We'll patrol. You like that, don't you?" Dawn said before kissing Connor.

"I love patrolling," Connor replied. "Except, sometimes the vampires are very rude, and they interrupt us."

"But we always make them pay, don't we?," Dawn told Connor. She kissed him again. He put his hands on her head and kissed her. After about ten seconds Dawn finally forced herself to leave.

Connor slid down to the ground and sat with his back against the tree, just like he did after he first saw Dawn. He smiled. Everything was perfect. He realized he had an hour to kill before dinner, so he went over to the Magic Shop.

At the same time, Janice stopped kissing Brandon. Janice left the janitor's closet, and Brandon followed her. "What's wrong?," he asked her.

"Nothing's wrong. But I'm supposed to go to Dawn's now."

"I think Dawn's got other things to do," Brandon replied.

"But I promised. We're supposed to meet at her house. If she's there, and I don't turn up, she'll be mad."

"I see you not showing up as a win-win situation," Brandon argued. Dawn gets to spend more time with Steven. And you get to spend more time with me. You do like spending time with me?"

Janice was opening her locker. "Of course I do, Brandon. I love every second with you. Every kiss, every touch. It's like a dream come true." She smiled, grabbed him, and kissed him again. Then she stopped. "But that's exactly why I want to go see Dawn. We're best friends. We talk about these kinds of things."

Brandon was perplexed. "You'd rather talk about kissing me than actually kiss me?"

"Oh, Brandon, you know I don't mean it that way. Just, it's getting late. And if we spend every minute of the day together, it won't be as special. I like to let you loose for a few hours. And then come back, and see the anticipation, the hunger, in your eyes. It's like when you called me the morning after the dance because you had to hear my voice. I loved that." Janice took out her backpack and closed her locker.

"So that's the reason. You love to torture me," Brandon concluded. "Strangely, I could see myself really getting into that. The leather, and chains. Maybe later you can tie me up." He was only partly joking.

"Come by my house at nine. My parents will think we're up in my room studying.' You can see how you like me as Mistress of Pain then." Janice was joking. Well, perhaps not entirely.

She kissed him goodbye. Brandon looked down the hall. The evening janitor had arrived. He was opening up his closet to get out his mop and bucket. Looked to Brandon like he and Janice left that closet just in time.

Janice got in her car. On the way to Dawn's house, she stopped to pick up their pictures from the Homecoming Dance. She arrived at Dawn's about a minute after Dawn came home.

Connor entered the Magic Shop. Anya ran over to him and gave Connor a big bear hug. Knowing that Connor grew up in a hell dimension, she had the urge to mother him. "Steven, I'm so glad to see you. You're such a wonderful, brave, well-adjusted young man."

Connor was rather shocked by Anya's unprecedented show of severe affection. "Uh, thanks, I guess. It's, uh, great to see you too, Anya." He looked over Anya's shoulder at Spike, giving Spike a "what's going on" look. Spike snickered. Maternal Anya was new to him, too.

Anya finally let go. Connor was a little short of breath. Spike explained. "Anya just found out where you grew up."

"I don't know why everyone reacts this way," Connor commented. "Everyone tells me it was some awful place. Well they haven't been there. And it wasn't. I was happy there. It was certainly better than Los Angeles."

"Ah! You didn't like LA much either. Never could stand the place myself," Spike joked. Connor laughed a little. "So I take it you're here to train?," Spike asked.

"Of course," Connor answered. "I'd like to try out those wooden things with the chains."

"Oh, you mean the nun-chucks," Spike explained as they walked into the training room. "They're mostly for show. You come at a demon with those and he'll laugh at you before breaking you in half."

"Remember Spike, this counts against your hours worked," Anya yelled. Of course, Spike didn't care.

"Actually Steven, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Connor was always willing to listen to Spike. "What is it, Spike?"

"I've been thinking about your father, Holtz. Something about Angel killing him doesn't seem quite right."

"But you know how evil Angelus can be," Connor argued.

"Exactly. I know him better than anyone alive. I know how he operates. That's the thing. Now tell me, where did you find Holtz's body?"

"He was in the alley, with Justine."

"That's the problem," Spike began. "Justine is the one who told you it was Angelus, right?"

"Yes," Connor replied.

"So how did she know? Did she see Angel do it? Not bloody likely. Angel's very good about not letting witnesses get away. If she was there, he would have known. And he would have killed her as well. That would have been his favorite part. Watching the shock on Justine's face as she watches Holtz die. Seeing the fear in her eyes as Angel goes after her. That's what gets his rocks off."

This was one subject about which Connor would not listen to Spike. "How do you know what happened? You weren't there."

This was exactly what Spike wanted to hear. "You're right. I wasn't there. But neither were you, Steven. I'm sure that when you saw your father dead on the ground you were devastated, completely heartbroken. You hear that Angel did it. You believe that, since you know he's a killer and he had a lot of reasons to go after your father. You didn't ask Justine how she knew it was Angel, did you?"

"I didn't need to. I knew that Angel was going over to see my father that night. When I get there, my father's dead. It was pretty obvious who killed him."

Spike did not know about the meeting. Still, it did not make him reconsider his theories. "Yes, it would be obvious. But the obvious conclusion is not always the right one. Here's how I see it: Justine finds the body, sees the two neck wounds. Believes it's Angel's work. After all, she already thought he was evil. You come by. She tells you it was Angel. But Justine didn't see who killed your father. So she didn't know for sure that Angel did it. While I, well, I know for sure Angel didn't."

Connor turned Spike's arguments against him. "So you're arguing that only someone who saw the killing knows who did it. But you didn't see the killing. So how can you be so sure?"

"I don't know who killed your father. Never claimed to. But I know it wasn't Angel. I've seen him take lots and lots of lives. I know how he operates. Someone like Holtz – a lifelong enemy he knows very, very well – that's a First Division kill. A Man United, Leeds, Arsenal, FA championship kill. It would be real special to the bloke. He put all the time and effort and creativity he could into it. I mean, Angel's a killer, but to him killing's an art form. He takes pride in his work. He doesn't just bite his greatest nemesis and drop him in an alley. Never in a million years."

"Great. It's nice to know daddy was an artist," Connor added ruefully.

"Don't say that, Steven," Spike told Connor, trying to make him feel better. "You're not like that. He's not like that. Not now, anyway. You're brave and selfless and caring and passionately devoted to the people you love. Your dad's like that too. I've seen Angel go both ways. Back before I got my soul back, I hated him. Whenever I tried to be Big Bad, have some fun at the expense of humanity, he'd get in my way. If he hadn't, I wouldn't be here, talking to you, person-to-person."

Connor was extremely disappointed that Spike, a man he greatly respected, had joined the Angel Fan Club. "My father, my Christian father, warned me about this. Told me the Devil can assume appealing forms, and seduce even good people. In LA I met many who had been fooled by Angel. Guess he fooled everyone around here as well."

Spike made it clear where he stood regarding Angel. "I don't mean for you to gather that I like the guy. Believe me, I don't. When I got here, I hated Angel the Good. And when he made his big comeback, I really hated Angel the Bad. I still don't like either of them.

"For starters, you know about Angel and Buffy. I told you me and Buffy used to have a thing. Thing is, I love her. I'm crazy for her. But I don't have a chance. Her heart still belongs to Angel. He's still the only she can ever love. Now imagine Dawn couldn't love you because her heart belonged to someone else. How would you feel towards that guy, that certain someone else?"

Connor thought about Spike's question. He tried to put himself in Spike's position. He had never tried to feel jealousy before. Now that he had pretended to feel it, knew he could never handle the real thing. "If that was me, I couldn't go on. It just wouldn't be worth it. Spike, I had no idea. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what you've been through."

This was an oddity – Connor feeling sorry for someone else's suffering. "I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. Bloody hell – that would be the day I couldn't go on living! You're 16. Every disappointment feels like it's the end of the world. But if it wasn't for all that longing I would never have gotten my soul back. I think I got the good end of that deal."

Connor now felt much closer to Spike. They both knew the emotional sturm und drang of romantic love. And not just that. They loved a pair of sisters! So Spike failed to convince Connor that Angel didn't kill Holtz. But he made Connor trust him even more. This would make it easier in the future for Spike to convince Connor that Angel did not kill Holtz.

Connor wasn't the type to get all mushy and bond while talking about girls. "It's getting late. I should be heading home for dinner."

Spike had something to tell Connor. "Steven, one more thing. If Angel killed Holtz, it would mean he had gone bad, become Angelus as you say. So when Angel came back to land, he'd still not have a soul. He'd still be Angelus, right? If that's the case, Drusilla would be the first one to have known about it. You noticed she has certain powers, knows certain things. When Angel loses his soul, she feels it. When I talked to her, before I killed her, she said Angel still had his soul. Dru was never wrong when it came to Angel."

Buffy came home from work a little after six. She heard Dawn and Janice chatting excitedly in Dawn's room. Buffy sat on the couch to watch tv and relax after eight hours at the Doublemeat Palace. About five minutes later Janice left and Dawn came downstairs.

"Buffy, you gotta see these! Our homecoming pictures came back. Look!"

Buffy looked.

"Here's me with Steven. Here's me with Janice. Here's Janice with Brandon. And here's the four of us together. Don't we look great?," Dawn asked.

Buffy looked at a few more pictures. Then she put her head in her hands and began to cry. Dawn didn't know what to make of this.

"Buffy, are you all right? Are those tears of joy? They doesn't sound like happy crying. Buffy, what's wrong?"

Xander was recounting his run-ins with Angel to Connor over dinner. Of course Xander put his own special spin on the stories.

"He puts Buffy in the hospital, then comes by with flowers to visit' her when she's sick. I step in front of him, look him right in the eyes. I tell him you wanna get to Buffy, you're gonna have to get past me first.' He laughs, says you think you can stop me?' I tell him maybe I can, maybe I can't. But I'm just dying to find out. How bout you?' He thinks it over, turns tail, walks out."

Connor was impressed with Xander's embellished tale. "Wow! You just stood him down. So what was it, he afraid of you?"

Xander laughed, realized he was laughing at himself, and quickly stopped laughing. "No. I mean, nothing's afraid of me. I can fight, but I'm much better at running and hiding. That thing with Angel, it wasn't cause I was deluded and believed I was some tough guy. I was shaking in my boots. But I knew Angel was a bully. He liked to hurt the helpless. Stand up to him, and most of the time he goes away to find something that won't put up much of a fight."

"That's my dad," Connor said with a depressing sigh. Xander noticed he wasn't helping, and tried to cheer Connor up.

"Steven, please, don't ever think of yourself like that. I knew your "dad" (it was tough for Xander to say) when he was bad, and I knew him when he was, um, not so bad. You're nothing like him. For starters, you seem to actually like me."

Connor had spent enough time around Xander to learn how to deploy self-deprecating sarcasm. "Well how else am I going to get all this free food?"

Xander appreciated it that the ever-so-serious Connor was developing a sense of humor. But at this moment, it was Xander who wanted to be serious. "What I mean to say is, see, Steven, I'm not crazy about my father either. What am I saying? I hate the guy. I've spent my whole life trying not to be like him. That's why we have fathers. So we can learn from their mistakes, and not make them ourselves."

Spike was home, watching Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape," where he plays a cool rebellious loner who risks his own life to save the lives of others. Dawn burst in. Spike was getting used to Summers women bursting into his crypt.

"I've spent of lot of time in here with you. We've talked about a lot of stuff. But do you remember me ever telling you it was okay for you to risk my life?"

Spike was taken aback by Dawn's bluntness. "Uh, um, well" was all he could manage.

Dawn fired another volley. "It's a simple question. Did I ever tell you to risk my life?," she asked him, with heavy emphasis on the words "I," "you," "my" and "life."

"Dawn I can explain" Spike began.

Dawn cut him off. "Explain! Explain what exactly? That you can think only about yourself? That you're so desperate to be the hero, so desperate to impress my sister, that you played Russian Roulette with my life?"

And then Dawn cracked. She realized what Buffy had realized. "Why did you do it!," she yelled at Spike, punching him in the chest. "Why? Why did you do this for me?" She stopped hitting Spike and instead put her arms around him. "Why me? Why me?"

Spike felt guilty because he had made Dawn feel guilty. This was precisely what he did not want to happen. "I didn't do it for you. You were right the first time. I did it for myself. I wanted to prove I still had it in me, that I wasn't helpless. Someone was going to kill this thing. If not me, then Buffy, or Steven, or you. I just wanted to get all the credit."

Spike pulled Dawn off of him, and looked at her. She was more composed, but still a bit teary-eyed. "Dawn, stop it. Please. All this whining, crying helplessness, it's not a good look for you. It's not you. You don't need to rely on others to protect you. You've done enough fighting, enough slaying, to know that. I just thought you deserved a night off. You're powerful. Just look at what you do to Steven. He's a bloody superboy, but around you he's helpless."

Dawn felt better. She realized that just because Spike chose to kill Gardar before it got to her didn't mean she was helpless. "I get it, Spike. You felt you owed me one after acting so crummy to me last year. And you were right. And you're also right about Steven. It is great how he like worships the ground I walk on. Oh no! That reminds me! I'm supposed to be meeting him!"

Dawn ran out and headed for home. Spike was happy, and a bit sore. He grabbed his bruised ribs where Dawn had struck him. The pain reminded him why it was a good idea not to get on the wrong side of either of the Summers women.

Spike opened a chest against the wall. The Acacia crystal was still glowing brighter than a 100 watt bulb. It had been two weeks. Spike wondered why. He wanted to know what made it glow.

Clem was out that night, with a cross around his neck and a stake in his hand. He really didn't want to slay. But he couldn't entirely resist the urge. In his mind, he was just going for a walk before heading in to eat nachos and watch "The Greatest American Hero," which began in 25 minutes. The cross and the stake? He would say he was just being careful. But if he wanted to be careful, why did he choose to take his walk through a cemetery?

Clem heard a woman scream. About fifty yards to his right, a vampire was attacking a young woman of about 20. Seeking out vamps to stake, that was reckless. But here a life was in danger. If Clem walked away, wouldn't that be wrong, even immoral?

So Clem leaped into action. Not to satiate his desire for killing, he believed, but to save a human life. He quickly approach the vampire from behind. "Yo, overbite!," Clem yelled. The vampire, who had only a second earlier plunged his incisors into the woman's neck, turned to confront and eliminate this nuisance. The vampire led with a right hook. The punch was telegraphed, so Clem blocked it with his left arm. With his right he staked the vamp.

Right then Connor arrived. Before heading over to see Dawn, he was killing time by trying to kill a few vampires. Connor was rather shocked to see Clem of all creatures dispatch a vampire with such effortless efficiency.

"Hi Clem," Connor said, tapping him on the back. Clem, a little wired after the fight, shrieked, dropped his stake, and leaped in fear. Then he saw it was Connor and was deeply relieved.

The woman naturally assumed it was Connor who saved her. She ran up and hugged him, telling him "you saved my life." Connor thought this whole scene rather funny. "No I didn't," he told the woman, removing himself from her grip. "Clem did. You should hug Clem."

The woman turned to take a look. Clem meekly smiled. The woman was rather revolted by the appearance of this floppy-skinned demon. She shuddered and ran away. "Hey lady, so much for gratitude!," Clem yelled at her in his tough guy persona. "Next time your life's in danger, maybe I'll just let you become vampire food!"

"I didn't know you hunt," Connor said to Clem.

"Hunt? Me? No, I hate hunting. There's the hunter and the prey, and usually I end up being the prey." 

"That's not what I saw," Connor responded.

"This? This was just me being in the wrong place at the right time. Now, if you excuse me, I want to be to the right place at the right time. My house. Curled up in a blanket. With the doors locked and the windows barred." With that Clem double-timed it out of there.

He realized Connor might have mistakened his curtness for rudeness. So he quickly turned around and said "By the way, nice to see you, Steven. A thousand apologies for not being more friendly. I'm just in a hurry. Have a nice night." Then the reluctant gray vampire hunter went on his way.

Buffy was upstairs at the computer, checking online police blotters and the web sites of local newspapers. Willow and Xander were in the living room talking about the recent revelations.

"I was really beginning to suspect something," Xander admitted. "I mean, what 16 year-old has never watched television, never seen ET' or Ferris Bueller'? He was just so clueless about everything. No kid could be that clueless about all that pop culture stuff. Not even if he was from Utah."

"I have to say, it does explains a lot," Willow responded. "We all knew he was Superboy, but tried to ignore it. At least know we know why he can do what he does."

"I should have known something was amiss about a month ago when Steven got locked out of the building and came up to my apartment by leaping up from balcony to balcony," Xander confessed.

Willow moved on to the juiciest revelation. "Of course, there's one thing we couldn't have seen coming."

Xander knew what she was referring to. "Actually, there were clues. Over and over again, he'd watch that scene from the end of Empire Strikes Back,' the one where Vader says Luke, I am your father.' He must have identified.

Willow asked Xander something that had been on her mind ever since that night. "So how is it, being a surrogate father to Angel's son? Let's face it, the two of you were never exactly hunky dory."

"It's been pretty cool. Now I know we have something in common. We both hate Angel. Wait a sec, did you call me Steven's surrogate father? Yuck! He's, like, only a few years younger than me. I prefer to think of myself as a surrogate big brother."

Xander thought about this. "Okay, okay. That might have come out wrong. That doesn't mean Angel's my surrogate father. God no! What I mean is, Steven sees Holtz as his real father. And the more I hear about this Holtz guy, the more I love him. He did such a great job raising Steven. And he traveled centuries to punish Angel for his crimes. That is so cool! He's like the father I always wish I could have had!"

Dawn got home from visiting Spike. Buffy came downstairs. Less than two minutes later, Connor arrived. Buffy got down to business. "Last night, some people were attacked in the woods in the southeast corner of town. Police said it was wild animals. Knowing this town, I'm guessing it was wild demons. Of course, that's redundant. I want you two to check it out. You know where Ellicott Park is?"

Dawn and Connor smirked. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've heard of the place," Dawn said.

"I've passed through once or twice," Connor added, trying to keep from laughing.

Buffy was unaware of their little joke. "Good. Remember, you're scouting, not slaying. Be careful. I don't want you getting hurt taking on more than you can handle."

"Yeah, play it safe, I get it," Connor answered. "Certainly wouldn't want to get my hands on more than I could handle over in those woods." Dawn elbowed Connor in the ribs. She thought he getting a bit too obvious.

Once again, Buffy didn't notice. "Glad you got it, Steven. I'll cover the center of town, in case this thing comes out into the open."

Willow gave Dawn the tranquilizer gun. "Here Dawny, take this in case you run into trouble. I doubled the size of each dart, so they should have enough tranquilizer to take down whatever crosses your path."

Connor raided Buffy's weapons chest. He got out two axes and two swords, one each for himself and Dawn. Buffy saw Connor arming and worried he would act a little too gung-ho, since that was his style. "Steven, please, be careful. I'm trusting you with Dawn. So don't do anything stupid which will make me regret that decision."

Connor assured Buffy. "Don't worry Buffy. I'll be very careful. Your sister is in good hands." Dawn poked Connor in the ribs with the muzzle of the gun. She thought he had gone overboard with the double entendres.

"Ow. That really hurt," Connor turned and whispered to Dawn.

"Yeah, well, keep it up, funny man, and you'll see what these darts can do," Dawn whispered in Connor's ear. "You think you're cute when you brag. Trust me, you're not." Connor got the point.

After Buffy, Dawn and Connor headed out, Xander and Willow were alone. "Xander, can you come up to my bedroom?," Willow asked. "I have a surprise for you."

Dawn and Connor roamed through the woods. Connor, who of course feared no demon, tried to get a bit frisky. Dawn demurred. "Steven, that's not why we're here. Come on, be serious. I mean, doesn't it freak you out that when we were here this this afternoon, there was something out her which could have attacked us?"

"Actually, that would have just made it more exciting," Connor replied.

"God, what's wrong with you, Steven? I mean, since when did you become such a jerk?"

Right then Connor heard something. He ran off after the sound. Dawn followed, confused and worried. Connor spotted his prey. He spread his legs and crouched close to the ground. He stared at the large, wolf-like creature. It noticed him and charged. When it came close, Connor swung at it with his axe. The creature pulled its head out of the way, and raised its front paws off the ground, clawing the air as if trying to intimidate Connor.

The it leaped forward. Connor moved to his right to avoid the attack. But the creature scratched Connor's left arm, and knocked the ax from Connor's left hand. Dawn was very worried. But when the creature turned to its left and lunged for Connor's throat, he calmy ran his sword through its skull.

But this beast was not alone. Another one dashed out of nowhere while Connor was removing his sword from the dead animal's skull. By the time he noticed this second beast, it was in midair, about to pounce on Connor.

"Steven watch out!," Dawn screamed. She detected this second animal about two seconds before Connor did. She pointed and aimed her gun, and shot the beast when it was in midair, its teeth about two feet from Connor's body.

The dart hit the animal in the chest. It still pounced on Connor and knocked him to the ground. Connor was trapped under the beast's massive weight. But Willow's double-dose of sedatives put the beast out before it could maul Connor. He still held his sword in his right hand, and he stuck it deep into creature's belly. Then he managed to get the heavy corpse off of him.

These creatures were about eight feet in length from head to tail, and about two-and-a-half feet wide from shoulder-to-shoulder. They had red skin covered with yellow-brown fur. along their backs, along the line of their spine, ran large yellow-green spikes. Larger spikes ran along their skulls, like some sort of crest. Their faces most closely resembled those of wolves, while their size and weight were similar to that of tigers.

Dawn ran to Connor, as he slowly got up. He was still a bit stunned from nearly getting ambushed and eaten. "You were right, Dawn, when you said you were going to show me what those darts can do. Great shot."

Then they both heard numerous barks and growls. Connor had learned his lesson and fled with Dawn. They were not pursued. When the noises became softer, Connor turned around. He saw four more of these creatures around the corpses of their dead brethren. Dawn thought he was a fool to linger and grabbed Connor as they took off again. They relaxed and began walking when they were out of the woods.

Xander was with Willow in her bedroom, waiting for his surprise. "I just wanted to give you something as a way of saying thanks for the great time I had at that dance." Willow pulled out a small stuffed animal. Xander was a bit confused. This was not what he had in mind.

"Don't you know what it is?," Willow asked.

"Sure I do. It's a stuffed animal."

"No, silly. Look at the long noise, the big floppy ears. It's a white elephant."

Xander quickly understood what was going on. "Oh no. You heard us. You heard me and Buffy that time."

"It's a pretty small house," Willow told him.

"I'm so sorry. You must think we're the worst, most condescending friends in the world.

"No, no, of course not. You were scared because I was scared. I wasn't ready to talk about all that stuff. That's why I went away. My mother was teaching a summer course at San Francisco State, so I headed up there with her. Why else would I go? You know I don't like spending time with her, much less living with her.

"I needed to get out of this place. Get away from what had poisoned me. I needed to be someplace safe and fresh. I needed to heal, to feel like a person again."

Xander felt this was his cue. "That's the thing. In order for you to heal, you have to talk with me about this. You can't keep going around pretending nothing happened."

Willow took this as an insult. "You think I'm in denial! I'm not. I think about Tara all the time. Every time I walk in this room, I look at the spot where Tara last stood. I remember her eyes, her mouth, everything about that moment. And then I think of everything that followed. How after losing one person I loved, I tried to destroy everyone else I loved."

"Then why can't you share that with me?" Xander asked achingly. "You can't keep all that pain bottled up. I need to help you."

Willow tried to make Xander understand. "Xander, you're my best friend. I love you. You love me. I know you'd do anything to help me. But sometimes you can't. Not every problem can be solved with a talk and a hug and a good cry. Sometimes even your magic can't make everything better."

After walking for a few minutes and recovering from their near-death experience, Connor remembered what Dawn said to him just before he attacked the beasts. "Did you call me a jerk?"

"I didn't say you were a jerk. I said that tonight you had been acting like a jerk."

Connor didn't comprehend the distinction. "So I'm not a jerk, except for tonight?"

"You just haven't been yourself," Dawn answered.

"So who exactly have I been?," Connor asked sarcastically.

"You've been different. I love you because you're sensitive and vulnerable and caring. But tonight, tonight you've been insensitive and callous and self-centered. You haven't been the guy I fell in love with."

"So you don't love me anymore?," a stunned Connor asked.

"Of course I still love you. I just don't like the way you're acting."

Connor had trouble not taking this personally. "You love me. You just don't like me. Is that it?"

With all this talk about how her boyfriend was not acting like himself, Dawn felt like she was in an Avril Lavigne song. Not that she wasn't a fan. But it made her feel like an adolescent cliche, like something out of "Dawson's Creek." This was a new feeling, since Dawn's teenage years had been anything but cliched.

She also realized this was their first fight, and she wanted to end it before either of them got really angry and said something both of them would regret. "Steven, I love you. I don't want to argue with you. Right now, I think I should go home, and you should go home. Right now, we need time apart. Time to think things through."

Dawn walked away. Connor stood still for a few seconds, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Then he walked home, resolving to understand why the love of his life was angry with him.

Buffy quickly realized no demons were invading residential Sunnydale. Not that night, anyway. So she went off to the graveyards to do her usual patrol. Nothing very stimulating. A few vampires here and there. The sort of stuff Buffy could handle in her sleep.

But being around the graveyards, she caught sight of Spike's crypt. The night they embraced, they said nothing to each other. And not a word had past between them since. Buffy knew this was ridiculous.

Spike knew this as well. But he was scared. Whenever he took the offensive in this relationship, it always led to disaster. He didn't want to do anything to make Buffy regret that she had given him another chance. But if Spike continued to sit back and do nothing, he would eventually squander that second chance.

Spike knew Buffy was around. He stepped outside to watch her from a distance. When Spike saw her looking in his direction, he knew this was the moment to act. He began to approach her. She saw him. Buffy slowly approached Spike.

When they were within speaking distance, Spike began. "So Buffy, has our little cold war ended? Are we on speaking terms again?"

Buffy said yes, but in a drawn-out fashion. "I've accepted that you are going to be a part of my life whether I like it or not. So if you must interfere, it would be best if you could tell me exactly what you plan to do before you go off meddling."

"I'll take that as a yes," Spike jokingly replied.

"I'm sorry, Spike. I'm not used to saying nice things to you. I'm trying my best."

"You're doing great," Spike assured her. "We've been talking for thirty seconds and you have yet to hit me. I thing that's some sort of a record."

Spike's joking loosened Buffy up. She even managed a chuckle or two. "What I really want to say is thanks. Thank you, for what you did for Dawn. It was stupid. It was reckless. It was irresponsible. But I'm glad you did it."

Spike was thrilled. But all the time he had spent as Buffy's whipping boy left him too chastened to gloat. "Well then, you're very welcome. I just have a weakness for foolishly romantic gallantry, especially foolishly romantic gallantry which involves getting the living snot beaten out of me."

"I always liked that side of you," Buffy responded with a smile.

"Really?," Spike asked. "Hold on a bloody minute. There's actually a side of me which doesn't fill you with revulsion?"

"Of course. Why else do you think I didn't kill you back when you were a vampire?," Buffy told Spike, only half-joking. "Even then, you had these moments when you were stripped of your cockiness, your unbearable arrogance, and all that was left was a guy who'd endure anything to help someone he cared about."

Spike saw this moment as a turning point. "So it's come to this, pet: at long last, you think I have a sense of decency?"

But Buffy issued a warning. "I've thought you were a decent guy before. But each time, you proved me wrong. Maybe now you can surprise me, show me you really have changed." And with that Buffy left.

Connor was lying awake on Xander's couch, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong. He could still only conceive of actions in terms of good and evil. He believed sin was the root of all suffering. Therefore, he must have sinned to make Dawn mad at him. Now all he had to do was figure out what sin he had committed, and resolve not to commit this sin ever again.

So he went by a little process of elimination. It obviously wasn't sloth, gluttony, envy or avarice. He hadn't felt angry towards Dawn, so it wasn't that. Since he believed Dawn was his one and only love, he could not classify his desire for her as lust. So what was left?

Pride. Yes, it was pride. He knew it. He felt proud because Dawn loved him. The pride led to overweening arrogance, and to his cocky behavior. His taunting of Buffy, his rudeness towards Dawn. This also explained why he nearly got himself killed. Now that Dawn loved him, he felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt him again. Thus his reckless engagement of the two beasts.

The solution was simple. Connor knew he had to be meeker. He was meek right up until Dawn said she loved him. He had to recapture his humility.

"Why the glumness?," Buffy asked Dawn when both of them had returned home.

"It's Steven. We had a fight."

"Ah yes. Boy trouble," Buffy responded. She knew all about that subject.

"He was different tonight. He wasn't like he was before. It's like, all of a sudden, he's changed."

Buffy jumped to what from her experience seemed to be the logical conclusion. "Oh no. Please, no. You two, you two didn't?"

"Oh come on Buffy. This isn't you we're talking about. My life is not just some replay of your life. I am my own person. You do know that?"

"Sorry Dawn. I didn't mean to sound like I was comparing your life to mine. It's just that guys, in general, have a way of changing, for the worse, after that. Glad to know that's not the case. Whew!, that's a relief."

"Guys act different for all sorts of reasons. Or for no reason at all," Dawn explained. "I'll just have to whip Steven back into shape."

Buffy looked a little worried. "That is just an expression, right? I mean, you're not being literal?"

Dawn looked annoyed. "Of course not! This is me, Dawny, your baby sister. You ask that like you don't even know me anymore."

Spike arrived at work the next morning to find Anya on the phone, chewing out one of her suppliers. "Listen here Jack, the merchandise was supposed to arrive here four days ago. When I make a deal, I expect the other party to uphold their end of the bargain. This is breach of contract. And you know what happens when you breach a contract? You know what happens Jack? You get punished!

"Now I don't care if one of the trucking companies you contract with filed for Chapter 11 and the other one's caught in a labor dispute. That's not my problem. You find someone to get the goods here by tomorrow. What? Full Price! No Jack, I am not paying full price. Time is money. You've wasted my time time, which is very valuable. You get them here tomorrow, I pay eighty cents on the dollar. Day after tomorrow, sixty cents. Day after that, fifty. You just get them here, and consider yourself lucky that I'm paying you and your lousy outfit anything. Kapish?"

Spike knew what was going on. "Anya, since we killed Gardar, have you noticed anything different about yourself?"

"What, what is it?," she asked as she looked in the mirror. "I'm not getting a unibrow, am I? I had those plucked last month."

"I'm not talking about how you look. I'm talking about how you feel."

"How I feel? I guess after I killed him, I felt relieved. Because before that I was convinced you were seeing to it that we were all going to die violently and painfully."

Spike didn't like being reminded of the murder-suicide pact he forced Anya and Clem into. So he tried to move the conversation forward. "Okay then, you're relieved. You feel bloody well lucky to be alive. Now the next day, and the days after that, did you feel bolder? Did killing Gardar make you feel a smidgen invincible?"

"A smidgen invincible? That's like being a little pregnant. You're not making sense."

Spike got to the point. "Ever since that next morning, you've been fearless. At least inside this store. You just chewed out that guy, threatened to do everything except shoot him in the kneecaps. And remember your little run-in with Buffy?"

"Oh that? I was just sticking up for you, Spike."

Spike didn't like to think that he needed people to stick up for him. "You attacked her. You hit her, remember?"

Anya thought this through. "Oh no. Oh no! She's gonna kill me! I mean, I'm a demon, and that's what she does to my kind. What was I thinking?"

"Trust me Anya, she's not going to hurt you. If she wanted to get you, she would have done it last week. Believe me, when she's angry, she doesn't wait. My point is, when you think you're about to die, but you come out unscathed, you start to believe nothing can hurt you. It's only natural. But it's dangerous. Eventually you'll piss off the wrong person and pay the price."

"I get it. Quit while I'm still ahead. Or while I still have a head. But I'm not apologizing, Not to Jack, or to Buffy. They got what they deserved. Especially Buffy. I have to admit, hitting her, that was fun. That was really really fun."

Dawn had told Willow what the monsters looked like. After a few hours of research at the Magic Shop, by early evening Willow had found a match. Dawn confirmed that the illustration in the book was exactly what she and Connor had encountered.

"It's called a Sulla," Willow told Dawn and Buffy. "They travel in packs of six. Since you and Steven killed two, there's four left." Willow read on. "Eww, gross."

"What's gross?," Buffy asked her.

"Dawn, you told me that after you killed two of the Sulla, the others came after you. But they didn't attack, right?"

"Yeah. Steven said it looked like they were protecting the bodies."

"Actually, according to this, they were eating the bodies. It says they do this to absorb the strength of the dead Sulla."

"Yeah, that is gross," Buffy replied. "And kind of sick. Knowing that when you die, you'll be eaten by your friends?"

"One of the benefits of turning to dust when you die," Spike said as he entered the room. "But if the Sulla are in town, they're the least of your worries. The Sulla are only here to mate with the Camillus demon."

"Wait, hold on. Camillus? What's that?," Willow asked.

"Look it up. You can tell me what it is when I get back from rehearsal," Spike told Willow as he left the shop with his guitar.

About an hour later Willow found out what the Camillus was. By then Xander had arrived. Connor was still working up the courage to apologize to Dawn. "Ughh, that's one mean-looking ugly demon," Willow said. Buffy, Dawn and Xander looked at the picture and agreed.

As practice wound up, drummer Sterling had a question for Spike. "The woman you work for, at the store, is she seeing anyone?"

"Anya? You want to ask out Anya?"

"Well, kinda. Yeah, I do. She's caught my eye at some of our shows. And I've seen her at that store on Main. She's kinda cute. She looks interesting."

"Yep, she's interesting. That's putting it mildly," Spike joked.

"But she's available, right?," Sterling asked again.

"She's unattached, if that's what you mean."

"Then you can introduce me to her. But a good word in, right?," Sterling wondered.

First Zooey and Willow. Now Sterling and Anya. "What, you want me to set you up? I'm trying to run a band, not a bloody dating service. Just so we can get this out of our system, is there anybody else who wants to date one of my friends. Aidan? Elise?"

Willow explained what was going to happen. "Says here the Camillus monster emerges from the Hellmouth to breed with the Sulla. And after mating with the Sulla, it devours them whole."

"The things some guys will do to get a little action," Xander joked. Willow and Buffy both looked at him funny. "Hey, I didn't know she was a praying mantis! That was different. I thought she was a woman, the kind of woman who didn't rip your head off afterwards."

By now Anya was with the rest of the gang, and Dawn and Anya wanted to know just what exactly Xander was talking about. Fortunately, Spike did Xander a favor by arriving back just in time to change the subject. "You find your demon?," Spike asked Willow.

"I found it. But if the Camillus is a demon, are the Sulla also demons? I'm just wondering, cause the books don't identify the Sulla as demons.

Spike explained. "The Camillus is almost pure demon. The Sulla are an animal-demon hybrid. There used to be lots of them around here. The early Indians hunted them and wiped them out, along with the rest of the continent's giant animals. The last Camillus retreated into the Hellmouth, along with a few Sulla. They live in the Underworld. But they can't mate there. So every 1,000 years the Camillus comes up here. The Sulla mate with it, and the Camillus gives birth to 600 more Sulla, who ravage the earth for a year before returning to their home. 999 years later, they return to begin the cycle all over again."

Spike had explained too much. Buffy asked him "how do you know all this? If these things only come up every 1,000 years, you've never seen them. So how come you talk about them like Jane Goodal talks about gorillas?"

Spike realized a confession was in order. "Fine Slayer, you got me. Shortly after I first came here, I tried to find a way to coax them up to earth to kill you. When that fell through, I went with Plan B, those bloody awful assassins. Most unoriginal thing I ever did. Not exactly proud of myself for that one."

Everyone was looking at Spike oddly. "Oh don't act so bleeding surprised people! I was evil. We know that. Can we move forward?"

"Can't move in any other direction," Buffy responded. "Want to move forward, tell me something useful. When is the Camillus going to rise."

"Since the Sulla are in town, any day now. Not tonight, though. It only rises when there is no moon in the sky." He quickly checked Anya's calendar on the wall. "No moon is tomorrow night. That's when Camillus will have her coming out party."

Xander had a suggestion. "So we take out the four Sulla tonight. Then tomorrow night, Camillus doesn't get any."

Spike disagreed. "The Sulla are hiding. In the forest, they won't be easy to catch. We go after them on their home pitch, they'll lie in wait, ambush us, and eat us for breakfast. Tonight, we do nothing. The Sulla aren't going to come out and kill anyone. But tomorrow they'll have to venture into the open. Then they'll have nowhere to hide, no chance of surprising us."

"He's right," Buffy told Xander. "We hit them where we can see them. Everyone be hear tomorrow one hour before sundown. We arm heavy. We hit them with everything we've got." Then she realized someone was missing. "Xander, you tell Steven. By the way, why isn't he here?"

"He told me he wanted to go patrolling, to be alone. All day he's been real quiet and brooding."

"Like his father?," Willow asked.

Xander was ready to explode. "No, not like his father! How many times do I have to remind you, he is nothing like his father! It's not like Angel is the only guy that broods. Besides, they brood completely differently. Steven doesn't do the furrowed brow, the worry lines on the forehead, the whole I-got-the-weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders' look. It's a whole other kind of brood. A wide-eyed, innocent, this-world-is-new-to-me' kind of brood."

Xander picked up Connor and told him the news. Connor saw this as a double opportunity – a chance to make up with Dawn and a chance to redeem himself for his careless and sloppy fighting the other night. Both of these problems sprung from the well of excessive pride.

Hunting these demon animals sounded familiar to Connor. After all, he was raised as a hunter-gatherer. Connor didn't know about the early American Indians who hunted these animals to extinction. But Connor and they shared common skills, and a common mindset. They were not afraid of terrifying beasts. They understood life as a contest of kill-or-be-killed. And they knew exactly how to win that contest.

Connor thought back on his Quor-toth days. He knew what he needed – spears. There were four Sulla, meaning he wanted at least four spears. With these he could injure the beasts from a distance and close with them only when they were weakened. He had made plenty of spears. But he knew one day wasn't enough time to make them from scratch.

So first thing the next morning he went to the Magic Shop and scoured their arsenal. They did not have any spears. But they did have several blades about one foot in length which were thick enough to be used as spear points. Then he went to a nearby hardware store and bought four six-foot long rods, each rod three centimeters in diameter. These would be adequate for shafts.

He took these supplies home, sharpened the blades, and figured out how to strongly connect them to the shafts. Then he used a little trick Holtz taught him. He tied a loop of string to each shaft about four feet behind where the blade was attached. When he put his index and middle fingers in the loop and spun the rest of the string around the shaft, it added greatly to the spear's distance, accuracy, and velocity. Putting his fingers in the loops allowed him to use more leverage and apply more force from his wrist when he threw the spear. Looping the string around the shaft caused the spear to spin in a spiral as it flew, increasing range and accuracy.

Holtz probably learned of this technique from reading about ancient Greek peltasts, probably in the works of Xenophon. Holtz used to tell Connor bedtime stories from Xenophon's "Anabasis." This was the story of how Xenophon and 10,000 Greek mercenaries, stranded around Babylon after their employer died in battle, fought their way north and traveled thousands of miles to return home. It's a story of men learning how to survive in an alien environment by adapting to every circumstance they find themselves in. You can forgive Holtz for trying to identify with Xenophon.

But Connor had not thrown a spear in more than six months. So he went outside and tested his abilities. He went to the graveyard and fired at four different trees from fifty paces away. He hit each tree right where he wanted to. He was confident he hadn't lost his touch. Confident, but not overconfident. Confident, but of course not proud.

There was one more thing Connor needed. So he went into the Magic Shop. He went straight to the training room, where he deposited his spears. On the wall he saw two axes. Their handles were short, about 16 inches long, but their blades were heavy. He thought these might be of use.

But he was there for information, not weapons. On the wall of the training room was a large map of Sunnydale, put up by the ever-conscientious Giles. Connor went back into the store's showroom. "Spike, I need you for a minute."

Spike went into the training room. "Do you know where Camillus will rise?," Connor asked him.

"Matter of fact I do," Spike replied. He showed Connor where this spot was on the map.

"Thanks. That's all I need," Connor told Spike. The location Spike pointed to was in the northwest corner of Sunnydale, about three miles from where Connor had encountered the Sulla. He studied the map to figure out what route they would probably take.

Then Connor went out and walked the route for himself. He wanted to figure out exactly where the Sulla would depart from the forest, and where would be the best place to intercept them. He found the part of the forest which was closest to the spot where Spike said Camillus would rise. If the Sulla came out at this location, they would run through a large meadow about 200 yards wide and 300 yards long. Connor believed he had found his ideal hunting ground.

Everyone assembled at the Magic Shop as Buffy had told them to. She outlined her plan. "I go to the spot where Camillus will rise. Since Spike tried to get this thing to kill me, I think it's only fair comes along and helps me kill it. Steven, you and Dawn go find the Sulla and kill them. Xander, you take them there in you truck. You, Willow and Anya will back them up. After the Sulla are dead, the three of you head over to help me."

As they were getting ready, Connor tried to make things right with Dawn. But she spoke first. "Steven, I just want to tell you"

Connor cut her off. "No. First, listen to me. Dawn, I'm sorry about the way I was the other day. You were right. I wasn't myself. I was a jerk. I was selfish and pigheaded and I nearly got myself killed. So, what I mean is, thank you for saving me from that Sulla. And more than that, thank you for saving me from myself, for telling me when I'm screwing up before I can do something I'd never be able to forgive myself for."

Dawn was truly touched. "Now this. This is great. This is the guy I fell in love with. This is the Steven I'll always love." Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips. Now everything was right once again in Connor's world. He was off to hunt demons with the girl he loved. For him, it really didn't get any better than that.

Xander saw Dawn and Connor make up. When they kissed, for a fraction of a second, for about the length of time it takes two frames of film to pass across a movie screen, he saw Buffy kissing Angel. Xander blinked, did a double take, and looked again. He saw Dawn and Connor. He didn't know what to make of this brief hallucination. He preferred to put it out of his mind, pretend it never happened.

There was something more pressing on Xander's mind at that moment. He went up to Buffy and asked her about Spike. "So is Spike part of the gang again? Am I supposed to go back to acting like he's an okay guy?"

Buffy was not ready to discuss her shifting feelings for Spike with anyone, especially not Xander. So she made light of Spike's inclusion. "If Camillus is going to eat someone, I'd like it to be Spike, rather than someone I care about."

Xander laughed a little. But he knew Buffy was hiding her true feelings. "Sorry about how that came out. I don't want to be insensitive. I'm not trying to criticize you. What I mean is, it's up to you. You were the one he hurt. So if you've forgiven him, then I'll try to forgive him as well."

Dawn was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to make up with Connor. She was planning to apologize for yelling at him, but he cut her off with his own apology. She remembered what Spike had told her about her power, about how she didn't need people to save her because she was too busy saving others.

Dawn walked over to Spike. "I want to thank you for what you said to me the other night. It meant a lot."

"It was nothing," Spike told Dawn. "I was just stating the obvious. So Dawn, does this mean you think I might actually be a good guy?"

"Well, Steven does seem quite fond of you. Maybe he's on to something."

Buffy saw Spike with Dawn, and thought to herself that perhaps Spike had finally become a good person. Maybe he really had changed.

As he walked with Buffy, Spike tried to maintain low expectations. "I have to ask myself, why are we out here, the two of us, alone? It can't possibly be because you enjoy my company. You've made it bloody well clear on plenty of occasions that you don't. And it can't be because of my fighting skills. As you yourself said, I'm powerless. So Buff, is it just because I make good demon fodder?"

"Spike, I am trying to be nice to you. I am trying to treat you like a decent person. But you are not making it very easy."

"With us, nothing is easy," Spike told her. With these five words, he had encapsulated the entire history of their relationship.

Connor told Xander where to drive to. When Xander was 300 yards from the woods, he ordered Xander to stop. "I want you to stay back. You come at them with this thing, and they'll get scared, split up and run-off. Then we'll never be able to catch all of them. Dawn and I will go at them. You back us up."

Xander disagreed. "Steven, don't you think we should go straight at them with everything we got? Two on four, I don't think that's safe."

Connor tried to explain. "Only one thing is on the minds of the Sulla tonight, and it isn't hunting. Each of them wants to get to the Camillus as quick as they can. They don't want to attack. They want to run away. So if any of them gets by the two of us, you run them down."

Connor walked towards the woods with Dawn. He gave her the two throwing axes. He had his four spears. Each of them had a large ax and long sword for close fighting. On the flatbed of Xander's truck, Willow had the tranquilizer gun and Anya had a crossbow and ten incendiary bolts. Since killing Demetrius, the flaming crossbow bolt had become Anya's weapon of choice. Also with them were sundry swords, axes, pikes and stakes.

Connor had Dawn take a position about 200 yards from the forest where she could conceal herself behind a small ridge. Connor himself lay low to the ground about 100 yards ahead of Dawn and 100 yards to her right.

A few minutes later, the four Sulla came galloping out of the forest. Connor got up and threw his first spear, hitting one of the Sulla in its side. Connor ran north across the open field after the other three beasts, who were heading west. He hurled his second spear, hitting another Sulla in its side. As the two remaining Sulla galloped west, Connor worried they were moving out of range. He quickly threw his third spear, hitting one of the Sulla in the thigh.

Connor turned to the left and faced west. The fourth Sulla was between him and Dawn, racing towards her. He flung his final spear eighty yards. It narrowly missed the beast. While Connor was standing still, fretting over this miss, the Sulla he had hit in the thigh came up from behind and ran right through him. Connor went hurtling and spinning through the air.

Dawn stood directly in front of the Sulla Connor had failed to hit. She gripped one of the throwing axes with two hands and let it fly end over end. After releasing the ax, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the Sulla as it leaped to maul her. A few seconds later, when she realized she was still standing, Dawn opened her eyes. Her ax was imbedded in the Sulla's skull. The beast was shaking its head from side to side, trying to dislodge this unwanted foreign object. Gleeful with her success, Dawn pulled out her sword, walked up beside the Sulla, and beheaded it.

"Am I the only one who's a wee bit frightened by watching Dawn singlehandedly taking down a 600 pound demon?," Xander asked back at the truck.

"No," Willow answered. "I'm throughly wigged. I mean, she's Dawny. But ever since Steven came to town, little Dawny's turned into Dawn the Huntress."

A second Sulla, the one Connor only hit in the thigh, was charging westward. Emboldened by her first success, and confident that she could hit anything that was directly in front of her, Dawn ran to her left and stood in the path of this Sulla. It was charging at full speed with its head down. It was preparing to charge through Dawn as it had charged through Connor, knocking her down like a bowling pin. When the Sulla was about 30 feet away, Dawn threw her second ax. It sailed over the Sulla's head and hit the beast square in the spine, killing it instantly. The Sulla's forward momentum sent its corpse tumbling forward, until it stopped at Dawn's feet.

After tumbling threw the air, Connor landed on his back with a force that would have broken the bones of lesser men. The two remaining Sulla, the ones that were injured the worst by Connor's spears, attacked him now that he was down. They wanted to finish off this threat, this nuisance.

Connor played dead to draw the Sulla closer. When they were almost on top of him, he pulled out his sword and his ax and swung away. Both Sulla were badly cut in the face and neck. They backed away. Connor stood up. Realizing he wouldn't be such and easy kill, the two Sulla's ran away in a northwestward direction.

The Sulla ran along a path which was 100 yards to the north of Dawn and 200 yards to the north of Xander's truck. It was impossible for Dawn to intercept them, and it would be difficult for Xander to catch up to them once the Sulla reached their top speed, which was in excess of 40 mph. But it took them about 100 to 150 yards to accelerate up to this speed. And while they were getting up to speed, Connor had a chance of catching them.

One Sulla was clearly less injured as thus faster than the other. Connor ran after him. Connor could run 25 to 30 mph over short distances, and quickly caught up with the frontrunning Sulla. Then Connor leaped into the air and landed on the animal's back. Once on top of the galloping beast, Connor plunged his sword into its back. The animal fell to the ground. Connor stabbed it three more times, and it was dead.

While Connor lay on top of this dead Sulla, the final beast approached him at high speed. Connor did not try to get out of its way. With his sword stuck in the dead Sulla he was on top of, Connor pulled out his ax. When the one remaining Sulla collided with Connor, he used the ax to slice its belly. It was a very inelastic collision, and Connor and the Sulla literally stuck together. Connor was pushed forward by the beast's momentum, and man and beast tumbled forward together. When they stopped tumbling, Connor stood up and drove his ax into the Sulla's back, nearly cutting it in half.

"It's comforting to know that I'm living with a houseguest who could take down a wildebeest or a lion or even a komodo dragon with his bare hands, should it ever come to that. I bet he'd be very good at scaring away bill collectors" Xander joked. With the Sulla dead, he headed over to help Buffy with the Camillus.

When Buffy laid eyes on the Camillus, she found it to be bizarre even by demon standards. It appeared to be some sort of fusion between an arthropod and a mammal. It had six legs and a head, thorax and abdomen. When it stood on all six legs, it walked like a spider. But it could rise up and stand on its two hind legs, using its other four limbs as arms. When it stood up, it reached eleven feet in height. At the ends of its limbs were three-toed hoofs with three razor-sharp blades at the bottom of each hoof. When threatened, the Camillus could stand up and use the hoof blades on its four arms to cut apart anything which threatened it.

"Any clue how to kill this thing?," Buffy asked Spike.

"Stab it through the heart," he replied.

"Stake through the heart?," Buffy asked as a means of clarification.

"Steel sword, wooden stake, plastic bloody spork. Take your pick," Spike answered.

When it was still walking like a spider, Buffy approached the Camillus. She wielded a large sword and intended to chop off its legs. When she came close to the demon, it stood up to its full height, easily dwarfing Buffy. The demon swung her arms at Buffy and Buffy retreated. "I understand, really, I sympathize," Buffy told the demon. "With a face and a body like that you're bound to be resentful."

The face of the Camillus was much more mammalian that insect. It was about two feet tall and 16 inches wide. It was elliptical and hairy, with two large green eyes and flaring nostrils. Four incisors emerged out of its mouth like fangs.

Spike pulled out his ax and tried to attack its legs. If he kept crouched low to the ground, the tall demon's arms could not reach him. Problem was, the Camillus had quite a kick. When Spike was about to chop at its left leg, that leg kicked forward and sent Spike flying backward.

Buffy flew in the air, kicked the demon in its midsection and then ducked and retreated to avoid its counterattacks. She then pulled out her sword. When the Camillus saw the weapon, it swung at her. Buffy was expecting this. She dodged the blows. While the demon's arms were stretched out trying the hit her, she moved in close and slashed the demon in the abdomen. The Camillus screamed, pull back its lower right arm, swung it downward, and slashed Buffy in the cheek. As the Camillus swung its lower left arm at Buffy, she did a backflip to maneuver out of the demon's range.

Spike went over to Buffy to have a word. "Any idea what to do about this Vishnu wannabe?," he asked her.

"How about we work together for a change," Buffy told him. "We attack together, you draw its fire, I go to work. It can't take us both at once."

"Beg to differ pet," Spike responded. "It has four arms. We have four arms. It's tailor-made to take us both on at once."

"Just shut up and show me what you're good for and take a beating," an exasperated Buffy snapped at Spike.

"Sure, if that's all you think I'm bloody well good for," Spike snapped back.

The Camillus did not attack. Like the Sulla, it had only one thing on its mind, and it wasn't hunting. It was content to wait for its mates and only attack the insolent humans if they were rude enough to attack it. After living for 11,000 years, the Camillus did not think humans were worth the effort of a hunt.

Buffy and Spike approached, each with an ax in one hand and a sword in the other. Spike attacked first. The Camillus bent down, placed its mouth about two feet directly above Spike's head, and let out a screeching roar. The noise cause Spike to flinch. Then the Camillus slashed him across the chest with its lower right arm. Spike crouched down. He swung at the demon's abdomen with his sword. But before he could land a blow, the Camillus pummelled him in the back with its upper right arm, then with its upper left arm.

Buffy tried to make headway while the demon was focused on Spike. But the Camillus swung its lower left arm at the ax Buffy held in her right hand. The blades on the arm's hoof cut the ax's wooden shaft in two. Buffy grabbed her sword with both hands and tried to cut off the demon's lower left arm. The Camillus pulled this arm back out of harm's way, and Buffy swung at air. The demon struck Buffy on the top of her head with its upper left arm, then kicked her away with its left leg. Then, with its right leg, it kicked Spike. Spike tumbled backwards on the ground, rolling head over heels.

Buffy and Spike got up. Spike pulled out a white canister and said "time to pull out the big guns."

Buffy looked at the canister. "Hairspray?," she asked.

"No love," Spike answered. "Flame thrower."

If cutting the Camillus's limbs didn't work, then burning them was worth a try. Spike approached the demon with renewed confidence. "Hello Camilla. I'm one of your old gentleman callers. You're about to learn that I don't take rejection very well."

Spike approached Camillus with the canister in his right hand and a lighter in his left. When she swung at him with her lower right arm, her hoof was singed with a blast of fire. The same happened when she swung for Spike with her upper left arm.

Buffy saw this was her chance. She approached, ducked under the demon's swinging lower left arm, and stabbed her in the thorax. Camillus tried to level Buffy with a chop delivered with her upper right arm, but Spike hit the arm with a burst of flame before the blow could connect.

Realizing she was in trouble, Camillus flipped backwards so all six of her limbs were on the ground, but with the arms behind the legs. Then she picked her legs up, flipped them around, and stood on all sixes, her head facing Buffy and Spike. The cascading limbs flowed almost poetically, with a balletic effortlessness. Even though she was hideous-looking, Camillus was capable of graceful movements now and then.

Down on all sixes Camillus was very agile and quick. Spike approached to burn her limbs, and she retreated backwards. Buffy came at her, and she maneuvered side-to-side. Buffy was able to use her own formidable quickness to close with the demon and swing for one of her limbs in an attempt to sever it. But Camillus merely raised the limb in the air, causing Buffy to miss with her sword. Then Camillus bent that limb back and kicked Buffy in the chest, sending her ten feet backwards.

Spike realized going for the limbs when the Camillus was hunched on the ground was fruitless. He decided to use the demon's quickness against it. He knew that the demon could run him down if it wanted to. So he decided to coax Camillus into trying to do just that.

Spike stood right in front of the demon, about thirty feet away, and stared it down. Buffy had an inkling of what Spike was up to, so she positioned herself about 15 feet behind Camillus. She figured that while Spike was distracting the demon she could take it down from behind.

Camillus scampered towards Spike, who did not move. Buffy closed with Camillus from behind. Spike let the demon's front legs pass him by. When the demon's face was about two feet from his own, Spike sent out a burst of flame, badly burning Camillus's puss.

Buffy leaped onto the demon's abdomen. The injured Camillus rose on her two hind legs. Buffy held on. She pulled out her sword and plunged it through the demon's heart. Spike saw the tip of the blade emerge out the front of Camillus. The demon's hind legs crumbled beneath the weight of her body, and she fell apart and crumbled to earth in pieces.

Anya told Xander to stop the truck. "It's over," she told him.

"What's over?," he asked.

"The fight. Camillus is dead. She just gave off her death rattle."

"Her what?," Xander asked.

"It's a very low frequency noise some demons utter when they croak. It can only be heard by other demons, and elephants, and I think some whales. But she's done for."

"Boy, we were sure helpful tonight, weren't we?," Willow said with a little disappointment.

"Yeah, it is kind of a letdown," Anya added in agreement. "We got all these weapons, and nothing to do."

"The night is still young," Willow replied.

Anya knew what to do. "You're right. We're all loaded up. We got the slayermobile. Let's go burn and dust ourselves some vampires!"

"That's a great idea!," Willow concurred.

"We'll be like Thelma and Louise," Anya concluded.

Xander had seen the movie, and wasn't pleased with the parallel. "Uh, ladies, this is my truck, remember? So no killing of any ex-boyfriends, okay? And I'm not driving off any cliffs."

Spike threw his hairspray can onto Camillus's remains. Then he flicked on his Zippo and threw it next to the can. As he and Buffy walked away, the can exploded, blowing Camillus into little gooey unidentifiable bits.

"Ya gotta admit Slayer, we make a quite the team," Spike told Buffy.

"We weren't so bad," Buffy told him. "You surprised me. You were able to distract that monster without getting beaten to a pulp." They stopped walking. Buffy looked at Spike. "Looks like you walked away with only these scratches on you chest."

Buffy put her left hand to Spike's wound. Spike put his left hand to the cuts on Buffy's cheek. Buffy realized what was about to happen and pulled back. "Anyway, what I mean is," she stammered while trying to change the subject.

"What you mean is it went well," Spike said, finishing her sentence.

"Yeah. Exactly. It went well," Buffy said in agreement.

"The others must have killed all the Sulla by now," Spike explained. "If any of them were still alive, they would have made it here by now."

"Everything wrapped up nicely," Buffy added. "A perfect night."

Buffy stood still to think about what these words of hers meant. Spike walked about ten feet before realizing Buffy wasn't following him. He turned around and looked at her. "Buffy, is everything okay?" 

In the silence of the next few seconds Spike realized what was about to happen. A perfect night for the two of them could only end one way. And Spike knew this night was not the time for their perfect night.

Buffy ran towards Spike, put her arms around him, and kissed him passionately on the lips. To her outmost surprise, he pushed her away.

"Buffy this is very wrong," Spike pleaded. "I love you more than anything, but that's why this can't happen. Not now. Not when you don't know the truth."

"I finally understand the truth," Buffy responded. "You loved me, and I wanted you, but I could never love you because you didn't have a soul. But now you love me, and you have a soul, and I can finally love you."

After saying what Spike had been waiting for two years to hear, Buffy leaped up onto Spike, her fingers caressing his hair, her legs wrapped around his waist. But Spike gave no reaction, standing like an English Bobby.

He tried to explain. "No Buffy, you don't know the truth. I haven't been completely honest with you. If we go through with this right now you'll never forgive me."

As Spike tried to be stoic Buffy started to aggressively nibble at his right ear. Spike could no longer be stoic. "Oh, Oh my. Oh, Buffy, you have no idea how much I've missed this. No idea at all. Oh, oh yes. But I am living a lie."

"Living a lie? You said you were human. I can feel your heart beating inside your chest. It's pounding. Your blood's racing." After saying this she bit him in the neck.

"Now Buffy. You know how much I loved it when you did this when I was a vampire. But I'm not anymore. Whoa, good golly miss Slayer! I love it even more now! But this is precisely why this must stop. You must believe me, as much as it truly, truly pains me to do this." Spike grabbed Buffy at the waist, lifted her body away from his, and threw her to the ground.

Buffy was stunned beyond reckoning. "You refusing me! You!! Refusing me!!! What is wrong with you, Spike?!! Is this some trick? Do you want me to know how you have felt? Well, fine! Shoe's on the other bleeding foot! Does that make you bloody happy? Are you happy to see me upset, to see me humiliated!?

"Oh, no. Now this is great. I'm crying. You made me cry. So there! Here's your proof, your blooding bleedy proof as you would say. I loved Angel, and he made me cry. I loved Riley, and he made me cry. And now you, some loser ex-vamp, who I could have staked whenever I wanted but never did because I thought you weren't worth the effort. You of all people, a little weak lost man, a stockboy who works for minimum wage and can't even afford his own apartment. Pathetic, more-than-a-century-old you. I'm crying because of you!"

"You sure know how to make a bloke feel special," Spike ruefully responded to Buffy's heartfelt yet insulting declaration of love. Then he noticed she was still on the ground crying. She really was in pain.

Spike got down on the ground and hugged her. "Please don't cry, Buffy. I never want to make you cry. I live to have the chance to make you happy. But what you want, right now, will not make you happy. Afterwards, you will find out the truth. And then you will wish you had staked me."

Buffy was not ready to comprehend what Spike meant. She had been on too much of an emotional roller coaster. She had come to the Earth-shattering realization that she loved Spike, only to have him refuse her moments later. It was like the chorus of the Leonard Cohen song Willow saw Spike sing at the coffeeshop:

"Just take this longing from my tongue,

all the useless things my hands have done.

Let me see your beauty broken down.

Like would do, for one you love."

Spike now saw Buffy broken down. She didn't know what she felt. But she needed to be close to Spike. She put her arms around him, holding him close, and sobbing on his shoulder.

Spike knew Buffy would have to regain her composure before he could tell her what he needed to tell her. But this was new territory for Spike. He was used to making Buffy mad. But he had never made her cry.All he could think of doing was to hum the melody to the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing," like he was humming some sort of lullaby.

After a number of powerful sniffles, which left quite a bit of mucus on Spike's leather jacket, Buffy did stop sobbing. She looked Spike in the eye and touched her forehead to his forehead. "Spike, can I ask you a question? Be honest. Are you afraid that now that you're human I'll be disappointed? Are you a little scared you'll no longer be, well, you know, a demon in the sack?"

"Oh, what a sweet, considerate, loving question," Spike answered as he kissed her gently on the tip of her nose. "But that is not the reason I did the unthinkable and pushed you away. I did that because of something far, far more important. Now Buffy, pet, love. My gorgeous, wonderful Slayer. The woman who gives my life meaning. Oh, no. No. Now I'm the one who is crying. Hearing you say you love me, after all this time. You can't know what this means to me!"

And now the roles reversed once again. Spike cried on Buffy's shoulder, his tears falling on her leather jacket.

"This is the most bizarre moment of my life," Buffy told him. "And you know that from me that is saying a lot. An awful, awful lot.

Both of them managed to laugh weakly. They realized the absurd truth in what Buffy had just said. "I guess this is our first tender moment," Spike told Buffy. "The two of us sitting on the grass, in each other's arms, crying and laughing together. This is what I have wanted since I returned."

Then Spike put his hand under Buffy's chin and looked deeply into her eyes. "But before this can go any further, there is something I must tell you. As much as this pains me, I must let go of you before I can begin to explain. I am scared to let go, because after I tell you the truth I fear you will never let me hold you again. But that is the way it will have to be."

Spike let go and stood up. Buffy followed suit. Spike took a few steps back from her, but Buffy followed him. He told her "for me to say what I must, you have to be at least five paces away. That way, if you try to kill me, I'll have time to beg for my life."

Buffy complied and backed away. She was as confused as ever. "Fine," she said. "Tell me your big news. But after everything we have been through, everything you have done to me, and tried to do to me, I cannot imagine anything you can tell me which could change how I feel about you."

And now Spike began. "Well, here goes." He took a deep, tremulous breath. "When I left here and went to Africa, I wasn't trying to regain my soul. I went to that demon so he could remove the chip in my brain. I wanted to be the Big Bad once again. I wanted to kill people. I wanted to hurt you."

Buffy looked a bit upset. But not too upset. After all, this was Spike. This was vampire Spike. She was used to him wanting to kill her.

"I was put through some tests – the usual gladiator punch-and-judy show. When I had survived them I was told my wish would be granted. I said make me what I once was so that I can give Buffy what she deserves.' Like they say, be careful what you wish for, cause boy you bloody well might get it.

"I was human again, and I was in agony. I was furious with the demon. I told him this was not what I wanted. I passed your crummy tests, and this is how you reward me? By taking all of my power away! By making me even more impotent than I already was!?'

"The demon gave some sappy speech about how I could be more powerful than I ever was, some treacle about the power of love. Crazy stuff to hear from a demon. And corny stuff to hear from anyone.

"So I tell im Enough of this Hallmark crap, Mr. Wizard. That is not what I want. That is not what I have earned.' And then something occurred to me. You stupid git,' I told im. I'm gonna get back what you stole from me.'

"But Mr. Wizard said that is impossible.' I laughed, told him watch me,' and left. I ran out of that cave, looking for a vampire. I was not terribly familiar with the locations of lairs in West Africa. It took me three nights, but I found a vampire in a squatter settlement in Dakar. She bit me, and she became dust.

"I tried it twice more. Each time, the vampire drank my blood and dropped dead. I knew what that crafty demon with the sick sense of humor meant. He made my blood poison for vampires. Didn't want to see his little creation tampered with."

Buffy realized how Spike killed Drusilla. Actually, she realized Spike did not actively kill Drusilla. He passively let her kill herself. Knowing this, Spike's killing of his sire looked a lot less heroic to Buffy.

Spike continued. "For the first time, I accepted that I was human. I hated myself for it. I was a failure, I had allowed myself to lose everything that made me special. Even worse, I started to have those gawdawful Angel Moments, when I was tormented by my past deeds. I was saturated by pain. I drank to dull it, but this didn't help. Even when I passed out drunk I saw my victims in my dreams. There was no escape.

"But somewhere in a dive in Cameroon, I started to laugh. Heart of Darkness.' Bloody Heart of Darkness.' The horror, the horror, and all that jazz. I was Kurtz. I thought of Brando in Apocalypse Now.' I imagined myself like him: bald, fat, surrounded by maniacs. I was not tragic; I was absurd. My life, my journey, my humanity was one big existential joke, and I was in on it. So long as I could laugh at myself, I couldn't kill myself. To end your life, you have to take yourself seriously.

"I hired myself off as a deck hand on a cargo ship. Bummed around the South Pacific. Learned again what sunburn was. Got onto a fishing ship going East. Somewhere on the ocean, as I was gutting salmon, I remembered you.

"After I got my soul, I was so full of rage and pain that you never entered my mind. This was the first time I thought of you after I became human. All I could feel was love. It was not like before, not just longing and lust and jealousy. It was divine, like I had been touched by God."

Buffy knew of only one way to reply to this heartfelt soliloquy. "Your were up to your elbows in fish guts, and that's the moment you think of me? You sure know how to make a girl feel special."

"Please Buffy. My heart is in your hands."

"Your heart is in my hands? Do you have any idea how disgusting that sounds? You give me your around-the-world-in 80-days story, Spike's journey into the center of his soul, and, oh by the way, if everything had gone right you would have killed me and all my friends by now. You don't expect to hear that after you tell a person you love them, even if you have as twisted a love life as I do.

"And your African cave demon. What is he, some glorified relationship counselor? Gee Spike, I know you're angry and want to kill, but isn't that just because you need to be loved?' Well, you know what? You're not what I deserve. I deserve a lot better than you."

Spike was finally moved to defend himself. "You deserve someone who would risk his life for you. Someone who wouldn't keep things from you. Someone who wouldn't take advantage of you. Someone who would risk everything to tell you the truth. Oh, wait a minute. That someone is me."

Buffy found this to be outrageous. "You really haven't changed. You still want credit for not doing the despicable thing. You want to be praised for being less of a scoundrel than you used to be. But I'm glad you came clean. It's good you told me told me the truth before I did anything I would later regret. It's good for your own sake. Because if I found out after, I might have killed you. At the very least, I would have sent Anya after you. I'm going home now. Don't follow me. Don't try to contact me. I'll contact you. If I want to. If."

Spike was relieved. He had planned this moment in his mind for months. He imagined how Buffy could react. This was a lot better than most of his hypothetical reactions. Buffy did not react with rage. This gave Spike hope that he had not lost her.

But he had not won her either. Back home, Spike needed to listen to something depressing. So he put on the second disc from Bruce Springsteen's "The River." One verse from "The Price You Pay" especially stuck with him:

"Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long

Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong

Where the dark of night holds back the light of day

And you've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay."

Spike wondered if this was not another of the cave Demon's cruel tricks. After all, demons aren't known for their predilection to provide humans with happiness. They like to cause humans misery. Maybe this was Spike's destiny. Perhaps he was doomed to glimpse the promise land but never enter it.

Buffy walked home torn by the conflicting emotions of anger and regret. She knew she had overestimated Spike, falsely assumed him to be a hero, a good guy. But she also knew she could not simply assume Spike had not changed at all for the better. All those things he told her, he could have taken to his grave. He never had to tell her the real reason he went to Africa. No one would have ever revealed his secret. The old Spike would have said nothing and happily had his way with Buffy. Why did the new Spike act differently?


	8. Chapter Eight: Walk On

Lorne comes to Sunnydale to scout Spike's band. And when he listens to Spike sing, he hears far more than he bargained for. Meanwhile, Buffy and Xander worry that Dawn and Connor's relationship is becoming too intense. Willow's friendship with Zooey grows more complex. And Anya gets a new man in her life. Meanwhile, Lorne learns about a deadly monster about to rise in Sunnydale and becomes Buffy's very reluctant sidekick.

His light was on. She knew he was home.

He saw her through the window. He knew she knew he was home.

Buffy turned her back to Spike's crypt. She stood there, thinking of what to do next. She wanted to say something to him. But she didn't know what that something was.

Spike stepped outside. He saw Buffy's back. She was just standing there. Obviously, he was the reason. She wanted to see him. He needed to see her. Then why couldn't he walk up to her? She was only 20 yards away. Why couldn't he call out to her?

Buffy chickened out. She walked away and didn't look back.

Spike chickened out. When he saw her begin to walk away, he took a few steps in her direction. Then he froze. He opened his mouth to say something, but his voice produced only silence.

"What was that book I saw you reading?," Connor asked Dawn.

"You mean Robinson Crusoe?," Dawn asked back.

"Yes, that's the one. I knew it sounded familiar."

"You've read it?," Dawn asked Connor. She had to read it for English class, and part of her wanted to know if Connor had already done her homework.

"No. But when I was young my father used to tell me bedtime stories about him. How he was stranded, all alone, in a world where he didn't belong."

Dawn got the parallel. It reminded her of something she had been meaning to ask Connor. "Steven, what was that place like? Where you grew up."

"Mostly rocks and dirt, lots of red and brown. Very little blue. No ocean. Not like here. Everyone tells me it was some awful place. But it's not. Everything was simple. You hunt. You keep from getting hunted. It was easier than living here. Life's easy when all you have worry about is surviving."

"Were there other people there? Did you have any friends?," Dawn asked.

"No. It was just me and my father. I met other people only after I left. Didn't really like them. People are deceitful. They pretend they're your friend and take advantage of you. People are tricky. At least demons are honest. They don't try to trick you. They don't try to pretend that they don't want to hurt you."

Right then, both of them heard a scream. It was from an alley on the next block. They ran there, and discovered four vampires. One of them held a woman by her hair. When this vampire saw Connor and Dawn, he let go of the woman. She ran out of the alley, right past Dawn and Connor.

The two of them stood at the open end of the alley. As they approached, the vampires slowly retreated. They looked scared. They also didn't seem too bright. After all, they were retreating into a dead end. They were trapping themselves. But both Dawn and Connor knew that as a rule vampires weren't the brightest creatures to walk on two legs.

The vampires quickly backed themselves into a corner. Connor kicked one of them in the chest, knocking him back into a brick wall. Dawn kicked another vampire in the stomach and punched him in the chin. He also stumbled back into the brick wall.

Connor and Dawn moved in for the kill. But the two vampires they were attacking pulled out metal baseball bats. They prudently backed up a few steps. Then they took a look behind them. As Connor and Dawn attacked two of the vampires, the other two maneuvered to their rear. Now these two also brandished metal bats.

Connor and Dawn were surrounded. The vampires had lured Connor and Dawn into the perfect ambush. So much for Connor's belief that demons weren't tricky or deceitful.

Two of the vampires moved in on Connor. He was quickly struck in the knee, the back, and the skull, and he fell to the ground. The other two went after Dawn. One of them struck her in the ribs. The other one swung for the side of her head. Dawn tried to blocked the blow with her arms, and the bat hit her in the left forearm. She was then hit in the lower back and in the front of the neck at her Adam's apple. She also fell.

On the ground, Connor grabbed one the bats as it swung towards him. The vampire held on to the handle. Connor was able to fling the bat to the side. The vampire who held the bat was thrown into the brick wall. Another vampire swung for Connor, but he rolled out of the way.

Connor stood up. The vampire who had missed Connor when he was on the ground swung for his head. Connor ducked. Then he kicked one of the vampires who was attacking Dawn. After getting kicked, this vampire stumbled backwards and fell over several metal trash cans. Connor grabbed Dawn by the hand, pulling her off the ground. Both of them ran out of the alley.

Once out of the alley, they turned left and ran for two blocks. Then Connor grabbed Dawn's hand and turned right, onto a residential side street. With Connor in the lead, they ran for 200 feet, until they were in the middle of the street.

The street was lined with two-story brick houses. Each of the houses was 20 feet wide and situated on a lot 25 feet in width. On one side of each house was an eight foot driveway, which it shared with the neighboring house. On the other side of each house was a two-foot wide alley, which it shared with its other neighbor. Connor ducked into one of these alleys. Dawn followed, unsure of what Connor was up to.

This narrow alley reminded Connor of a trick he learned climbing rocks in Quor-toth. He put his feet against one wall, and his hands and back against the other, and climbed up between the walls. Dawn did the same.

Soon both of them were 20 feet off the ground, facing each other, Connor's feet next the Dawn's head and Dawn's feet next the Connor's head. Dawn was about to ask Connor what they were supposed to do now. Connor put his right index and middle fingers over her lips. He didn't want her to give away their hiding spot.

Connor reached his right hand into Dawn's right pants pocket. She thought this was an inappropriate time for him to want to fool around. But he was pulling out the stake she had in that pocket. Connor then reached his left hand into his own left pants pocket to pull out a second stake.

Dawn realized what Connor was up to. The vampires had ambushed them. Now they would return the favor. Dawn reached her left hand into her left pocket to pull her other stake. But Dawn needed another stake. After all, there were four vampires. So she followed Connor's lead. Dawn reached her right hand into Connor's right pants pocket. Before pulling out the stake, Dawn's hand lingered for a second or two longer than necessary. Connor bit his lip to keep from making any noise.

The vampires ran up and down the street. One of the them heard breathing between two of the houses. The four vampires moved into the alley, baseball bats brandished, ready to finish off their victims. That is, if they could find their victims.

When the four vampires were directly underneath them, Connor and Dawn jumped down, a stake in each hand. The vampires were dust before they knew what hit them.

Connor dropped his two stakes and leaned against the wall of one of the houses. He breathed a sigh of relief, then smiled and laughed a little. "I've been waiting for a chance to do that," he told Dawn.

"Know what I've been waiting for?," Dawn asked Connor. She kissed Connor and threw her arms around him. This was also something Connor had been waiting for. After all, patrolling can be a bore if all you do is stake vampires.

About a minute later, Connor discovered the downside to vampire hearing – you can't shut it off. He could hear the people inside the house his back was up against. On the second floor, a man and a woman were arguing.

"Your secretary! Your secretary!"

"Baby I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's a little too late for denials. The late nights. The weekends. The hang-ups when I pick up the phone. And the health club. I mean, come on! Since when did you want to lift anything heavier than a stapler?"

"Baby, please. I can explain. I love you."

"No need to explain. I got it all figured out. After her, and Molly, and Tanya"

"Oh, come on! That's not fair. That was years ago. I told you about them. That's in my past."

"No it's not. You can change your job, but you can't change your ways. You've never loved me. I was just the one who was dumb enough to stick around." The woman ran down the stairs into the front foyer. The man followed.

Hearing this argument was putting Connor out of the mood. So he leaned forward. Dawn leaned back into the wall behind her. She was pleased. Dawn like it when Connor showed a little eagerness. She didn't need to be the aggressor every time.

But getting his back off the wall did not prevent Connor from hearing the argument. As the man reached the bottom of the stairs, the woman threw his coat at him.

"Get out!"

"What!"

"Get out."

"But this is my house! I paid for it."

"Community Property, baby. It's as much mine as yours."

"Community Property? Oh no, please don't tell me. No, please"

"Consider yourself lucky. In another state I'd take you for everything you had."

Now the man got angry. "What's mine is yours? Then what's yours is mine. Okay then." He walked into the dining room. "Then the porcelain is mine," he said, throwing her vase into the wall. "And the wedgwood is mine," he said, throwing her plate into the wall. Both of course shattered into pieces.

He walked into the living room. Opened up his desk drawer, pulled out a necklace, and put it in his coat pocket. "Take anything you want. Take it all. I don't care. Cause you can't take me," he said as he went to the door.

"Who in their right mind would want to take you?," she said. "You're a monster. Go to hell!" He opened the door, walked through it, slammed it behind him, and left.

Connor pulled away from Dawn. "What's wrong?," she asked.

"We shouldn't be doing this. Well, not right here."

Dawn looked to her right and noticed they were 50 feet from the street. "Yeah, I guess we are trespassing or something."

"It's not that. I just, I can hear through the walls. I can hear the people inside. It's kind of distracting."

"Oh, right. I forgot. Your powers."

Dawn walked out of the alley. Connor followed. "Guess it would be better if we were in a place more, secluded," Dawn said.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Steven. That trick you pulled, it was great. It was like, Spiderman or something."

"Our trick. You were up there with me. Couldn't have done it without you."

"Well, when I'm with you, I think I can do anything." Then Dawn looked at her watch. "Anything except be home late. Steven, it's past 11. If I'm not home soon, Buffy will suspect something. Remember, she thinks I'm over at Janice's."

"It's that late! We do gotta go. Wouldn't want to ruin this little arrangement of ours, now would we?," Connor replied.

Connor and Dawn were about to turn and go their separate ways. Then they turned back and faced each other. Connor grabbed Dawn's waist, Dawn grabbed Connor's shirt, and they kissed. Dawn backpedalled away, but Connor hung on for about 15 feet. Then their lips parted, they let go of one another, and Dawn turned around and ran home. Connor watched her for a few seconds, then turned around and headed home himself.

Xander was over at Buffy's hanging out with her. "Where's Dawn?," he asked.

"At Janice's. Studying. Where's Steven?"

"He went over to Clem's. Clem has a lot of that grape soda Steven really likes. They're supposed to be watching an A-Team marathon."

"Wait a sec. When I was patrolling the graveyard tonight, I saw Clem. He wasn't with Steven."

Xander and Buffy looked at each other and quickly realized what was going on.

"I don't believe it! Are we that gullible? The oldest trick in the book," Xander said.

"Seems it was only yesterday we were using that to fool our parents," Buffy reflected. "We really should have known better. I can't believe I didn't see it coming."

Xander stood up and moved to the door. "I guess it was because Steven's never lied to me before. He's always such a straight shooter. I'm going home, and when he comes home, we're gonna have a little talk. Omigod! Did I just say that? Are we turning into our parents?"

"We're not. We can't be," Buffy responded. "We're not our parents. We're just doing what's best for them. They have no one else to look out for them."

Xander quickly left before either of them could become any more terrifyingly parental.

A little while later Dawn came through the front door. Buffy was standing in the hall next to the stairs. "Where have you been, young lady?"

"You know where I've been. At Janice's. Studying."

Buffy grabbed Dawn's backpack and opened it. Inside were a couple crosses, a couple stakes, a knife, and a small mace. Buffy pulled out the mace. "What exactly was it you were studying?"

"Well, you know, we have that medieval unit in world history class, so we were, well, going over"

"Give it up Dawn. Tell me the truth."

"Fine. I wasn't studying with Janice. I was out patrolling."

She had yet to reveal the whole truth. So Buffy nudged Dawn along. "You were fighting vampires all alone? You know how dangerous that can be. Why would you take such a risk? If you wanted to go patrolling, you could have always asked to go with me."

"But you don't like it. You said when other people go patrolling with you they get in your way, cramp your style. Anyway, I wasn't alone."

Dawn had given herself away, and she knew it. "And who was it you were patrolling with. Janice? Brandon? Xander? Spike?"

"Yeah. That's the one. Spike. I was with him. I just didn't want to tell you because I know you don't want me hanging around him."

Buffy knew this was false. "Okay then. I'll just go over to Spike's and ask him myself." She walked out the door. Then she realized this charade was absurd. She walked back inside. "Oh, please. You don't think I know who you were with? How stupid do you think I am.? I know. I just want to hear you say it."

"Fine. You got me. I was with Steven. I was killing vampires with Steven. I was saving lives with Steven. Now what's wrong with that?"

"You're the one who knew it was wrong," Buffy responded. "Why else would you lie about it?"

"Because I didn't want to worry you. You don't like it when I patrol without you. You think you need to protect me. Poor little helpless Dawny, always needing someone to save her.' That's what you think of me, isn't it?"

"Dawn, you know that's not what I think of you. And trying to change the subject. The issue here is that you snuck out of the house to go slaying. With a boy. On a school night."

"Nothing you haven't done," Dawn shot back. Then she ran up the stairs and into her room. She found Buffy's self-righteous condemnation to be ridiculous, considering what Buffy did when she was Dawn's age.

Buffy realized this and let Dawn go. She knew that if she continued the lecture Dawn would bring up Angel. And the fact that Buffy's high school sweetheart was the father of Dawn's high school sweetheart would just make that conversation entirely too uncomfortable for the both of them.

Connor was sitting at the kitchen table, eating cold pizza. Xander entered the room. "So, Steven, which A-Team episode did you watch?"

"Uh, it was the one where Mr. T's afraid of flying, so Murdoch and Face put some sleeping pills in his sandwich."

Smart kid, Xander thought. That was every A-Team episode. So Xander called his bluff. "Oh, you mean the one where they flew to Peru to kill those Andean vampires?"

"Yeah. That's the one."

"Nice try, Steven. They didn't have vampires on The A-Team.' So, really, where were you tonight?"

"I was hunting vampires. You know, killing the evil ones and saving the lives of innocent humans. What's wrong with that?"

Xander walked up to Connor, put his right hand on top of Connor's head, and tilted the head leftward to expose the entire right side of Connor's neck. On that part of Connor's neck was a rather large hickey.

"Was it a vampire who gave you that?," Xander asked, then let go. Connor looked bashful. Xander walked out of the room. He knew who gave Connor that, and he really didn't want to hear about it. What Dawn and Connor did together was the last thing Xander wanted to hear about. It was just icky and disturbing. After all, this was Dawn. Xander would sooner cut off his own eyelids than be forced to imagine little Dawny in any situation which was remotely sexual.

Willow and Buffy were eating breakfast when they heard the door open and someone walk in. Buffy worried it was Spike, desperate for a second chance. Willow worried it was Xander, desperate to help bring "closure" to her post-Tara trauma. They were both wrong.

Anya walked into the kitchen. "Hey Willow, glad to see you're up. I have more than an hour before the shop opens, so I was wondering if you wanted to go to PJ's for breakfast. You seemed to love the place when we had breakfast there last week."

Buffy was confused. "You two went out to breakfast last week."

"Yes," Anya said. "After we spent the night together."

Buffy spit out the coffee which was in her mouth. "You two spent the night together?!!"

"No," Willow answered. "Xander was also with us."

"The three . . . of you?," a supremely shocked Buffy managed to say. "You three?"

"I know, you didn't think we had it in us," Anya answered. "It was the first time for all of us. But once we got past the fear, it was a blast."

"You . . . three?," Buffy said again. "Last week? And Xander hasn't said anything? That's not the sort of thing he'd keep quiet about."

"Well it's not like he did much," Willow told Buffy. "He just sat there and watched."

Buffy was so shocked all she could do was parrot back what she heard in the form of a question. "He watched? He watched you two?"

"Slay vampires," Anya answered. "What did you think we were talking about?"

Buffy didn't want to answer that. She wanted to forget that particular thought forthwith and forevermore. "Oh, I knew. I just was a bit surprised. I didn't think you were the types to go out and do that on your own."

Willow explained. "It was the night you guys killed the Sulla and the Camillus, no thanks to us. It would have been a bummer to go home empty-handed. So Xander drove us around in his truck, and we stood in the back taking out any vamps who crossed our path."

"It was great! We got 16!," Anya exclaimed.

"I thought it was 14?," Willow asked her.

"No it was 16. Remember, we each got eight."

"Yes," Willow told Anya, "But there were two which you shot with your fire arrows and I staked. So we each did six solo, two combined. That's 14."

"Yeah, you're right," Anya told Willow. Then she turned to Buffy. "But fourteen's a good total for one night, isn't it?"

Buffy often failed to get 14 in a single night. But she didn't want to allow Willow and Anya to believe they could outslay the Slayer. "It's good. For beginners," she told them condescendingly.

Willow continued with the story. "So after a few hours Xander started complaining that he had work in the morning, and had to go to sleep. So he split in the truck, and we took our weapons and continued on foot."

Anya jumped in. "We walked around until sunrise, trying to find more vampires, picking off a couple here and there. Then, it's morning, and we're hungry. But I tell Willow we should head home, since nothing's open this early in this town."

Willow finished. "But I tell Anya that I thought that PJ's Pancake House would be open. It's a breakfast place, and this was breakfasttime."

"And what a wonderful breakfast place it is!," Anya interjected. "I mean, the banana pancakes, and then the strawberry pancakes. I never knew those flat round floppy pieces of bread could taste so delicious!"

"Yeah, PJ's is great," Willow concurred. "But it's a sit-down place, so the service takes a little while. And Anya, the thing is, I have a class in 30 minutes. So there's just not time for me to go with you today."

"That's fine," Anya told her. "And I guess it wouldn't be as special if it wasn't a post-slaying feast."

"Is that an invitation?," Willow asked Anya.

"Oh, right," Anya answered. "Cause a post-slaying feast would be post, the slaying. Yeah, sure. It would be great to do it again. If you want to."

Willow did want to. "We are a great team, and it would be bad if we retired right after opening night."

"I'll see when my schedule's free," Anya told Willow before leaving.

Buffy thought Willow was being obscenely cavalier about the risks of her new social activity. "Willow, I'm glad you and Anya are capable of defending yourselves. But, and don't take this as an insult, I wouldn't press you luck. Quit while you're ahead."

"Don't take that as an insult? Is there another way I can take that?," Willow asked Buffy.

"Take it as a voice of reason," Buffy responded. "Living in this town, living with the Slayer, you face enough threats to your life. I don't know why you'd want to go and actually seek out even more danger. The two of you talked about slaying as if it's like going clubbing. It's not. Trust me. It's not something you do for kicks."

That afternoon, Dawn and Connor and Janice and Brandon were out walking around a pond. Dawn was talking to Janice and – for the first time – Connor was talking to Brandon.

"This thing with you and Steven, is it serious?," Janice asked Dawn.

Well, there's serious, and then there's the unique, trans-dimensional bond between a boy who came from vampires and a girl who came from an energy orb. Dawn had to find a less sensational way to describe their relationship.

"I think it is. It has been for the last month. Since the first time he told me he loved me."

Janice did the math. "Wait. You met this guy two months ago. One month later, he says he loves you? Girl, you move fast."

"I what?," a somewhat confused Dawn asked.

"Oh don't play dumb with me. Gotta say, I can't blame you. If I had been in your shoes I would have jumped his bones too."

Dawn realized Janice was drawing all sorts of faulty conclusions. "You think that's what I meant? I haven't, I mean, we haven't, yet. Have you and Brandon?"

"Well, yeah. What did you expect, we'd take a while to get to know each other better? We've known each other for, like, 12 years."

"Wow. That's great for the both of you. But Janice, why didn't you tell me? I mean, we're supposed to talk about these kinds of things."

"I would have, but, it's Brandon. I figured you wouldn't like to hear about Brandon in that way, to think of him in that sort of context."

"Oh, I see what you mean. Good point. Very considerate of you to spare me the details." Dawn told Janice.

"No need to spare me your details," Janice said to Dawn. "Wait, no, that sounded wrong. Not those details. What I mean is, what's Steven like? I hardly know him. I think I should know more about the guy who's in love with my best friend."

Dawn tried her best to describe Steven to someone who knew nothing about who or what he really was. "He's real nice. Unfathomably nice. And caring. You wouldn't wouldn't believe the way he compliments me. Just on and on about how I'm the only girl he could ever love and how I mean the world to him."

"So he's the wooing sort," Janice commented. "Sounds kind of sweet and old-fashioned."

Dawn continued. "I guess he is kind of old-fashioned. And very innocent. Almost childlike at times. But then he can be intense and passionate, more intense and passionate than anyone I've ever met. He just has this fire inside him."

"Speaking of intense, I heard someone say he beat up the football team? What's up with that?"

"They're exaggerating," Dawn answered. "He really only, kind of beat up the starting lineup. I think he just did it to impress me."

"Oh, just the starting lineup," Janice commented sarcastically to hide her shock. She glanced at Steven, who was about 100 yards away. "Powerful little thing. Size of the fight in the man, I guess. So Steven's one tough little dynamo, like Bruce Lee?"

"Something like that," Dawn drolly told Janice. "Steven's not like other guys (talk about an understatement!). He doesn't talk or think like other boys. The little things – school, sports, parties – mean nothing to him. He only cares about big things. He only feels big emotions. He never said Dawn, I like you' or Dawn, are you free Saturday night?' or Dawn, I think you're pretty,' none of the stuff other boys would say. With Steven it was always Dawn, you look luminous,' Dawn, you make life worth living,' Dawn, I love you.' He told me he loved me before I even kissed him for the first time."

Janice took a few seconds to absorb this. "Wow, he is old-fashioned. And obsessed. I mean, take away that gorgeous face and he's stalker material."

Of course Dawn had thought all of this after she first met Steven. But it sounded almost offensive coming from someone else. So she defused the matter with a dig at Janice's guy. "Steven couldn't have been my stalker. That job was already filled by Brandon."

Janice got the joke. She knew how Dawn-obsessed Brandon was before his miraculous metamorphosis. (At this time Janice did not know about Xander's role in all this.) Janice put a positive spin on Steven's intensity. "What I meant to say was, it's great to love someone who loves you so much and isn't afraid to tell you how he feels. It's kind of like a fairy tale. You do love Steven, right?"

"Of course. He's my one and only. Just like Brandon's your one and only."

Brandon was trying to get a conversation going with Connor. "Steven, I think you should know that Dawn is a very good friend of mine, and I care for her deeply."

"Then you must know how special she is," Connor told Brandon. "How her beauty is unmatched, her heart more caring, her soul deeper and more profound than any other on God's earth."

Brandon was overwhelmed. At the height of his passion for Dawn, even he had never portrayed her in these terms. "I take it that means you care for her too," was Brandon's underwhelming response. "I'm glad. And I'm glad you know how special she is."

"There is none other like her," Connor said. He assumed Brandon was referring to the fact that Dawn was the Key. Brandon of course knew nothing of this.

"I'm glad you feel that way Steven," Brandon told Connor. "Cause I would hate to see Dawn get hurt."

"I would sooner chop off my own hands than allow myself to hurt Dawn," Connor told Brandon.

Brandon was taken aback by Connor's declaration. "Well, that's nice to know. Disgusting, but nice. You seem to be a good guy, Steven. By the way, how old are you?"

"I'm 16."

"Huh? You seemed older than that to me. I thought you were at least 20. To be honest, when we met I assumed you were some college guy trying to take advantage of Dawn. That's why I wasn't that nice to you."

"Actually, I'm a little younger than Dawn," Connor told Brandon. "I think her birthdate is before mine." Of course he was telling the truth. Dawn was "born" more than two years before Connor was born.

"I have to admit, I find that a little comforting," Brandon said. "I feared you were experienced, been around the block, so to speak."

Connor looked confused. He didn't get Brandon's references. Brandon realized what this meant. "Hold on. You're a virgin?"

Connor had not thought of it like that before. But now that he did, he realized he was. To be fair, he had only discovered girls eight months ago. "Yes," he told Brandon. "Aren't you?"

Brandon burst out laughing. At first he was laughing at Connor's suggestion. Then he was laughing at the fact that out of the two of them Connor was the inexperienced one. He never figured Connor for inexperienced. "Well, I guess some of us are just late bloomers. For me, it was last year at Becky DiPrima's party. I was a little buzzed and I went up to Cindy Samuels and – as a joke, of course – asked her if she wanted to go in the closet with me. To my everlasting surprise, she said sure. So we went. Best five minutes of my life. Until, of course, Janice."

"Five minutes?," Connor asked Brandon. It just seemed like so little time to him.

Willow was hanging out at the coffee shop with Zooey. There was so little Willow actually knew about her new friend. So Zooey filled her in.

"I wasn't crazy about college. Basically, it was a way to get away from my parents, strike out on my own, finally cut the umbilical cord. Course, I had to pay my way through. 40 hours a week plus classes was a real grind. Spring of sophomore year I decided it just wasn't worth it and up and left.

"Meanwhile the rents had moved up to Eureka, putting a good 600 miles between us. I headed home, played around in a few bands, did the whole bohemian thing. Way I saw it, I could be young and lazy and broke and stressed-out at college, or I could drop out and be young and lazy and broke and happy."

"So what to your parents make of all this?," Willow asked. "I mean, my mother could care less about most of the stuff I do. But if I dropped out of college she'd go crazy."

"Actually the rents were cool about it all. They're still hippies at heart, which can get real annoying at times, but it means they let me get away with just about anything – except voting Republican. Then they'd go psycho. But they think I should do my own thing and find myself,' whatever that means. How can you lose yourself to begin with?"

Zooey looked at her watch. "Uh oh, gotta go. Sound check's in five." Zooey walked to the door. "You going tonight?"

"Sorry, I can't," Willow told Zooey. "I got a biology lab I have to go to."

They were both on the sidewalk. "Bummer," Zooey said. "Later, then."

The goodbye was awkward, because of the very awkwardness of their relationship, which was based upon mutual attraction and a mutual understanding that neither person should act on the attraction.

They looked at each other nervously. Zooey finally reached out her right hand and if she was going to shake Willow's hand. Then, at the last moment, without meaning to, Zooey's hand shot upward and touched Willow's left cheek. Willow put her left hand on Zooey's right hand, and held it there. Zooey got nervous and quickly pulled her hand away and left. Willow stood there, with her left hand still on her cheek, trying to figure out what had just happened.

At the same time Spike was leaving the Magic Shop for the sound check. Then he remembered something he wanted to tell Anya. "Hey Anya, I think I should tell you that Sterling, my drummer, has a thing for you."

"The drummer?," Anya asked, trying to remember what he looked like.

"Yeah. Says he thinks you're really interesting. And he doesn't know the half of it!" Spike then left.

A few seconds later Connor and Dawn entered. Anya was thinking about what Spike had just told her. She thought it would be nice to play the field. Her experience with men had been rather limited. So she decided to head on over to the Bronze while the band was there for the sound check to catch a look at her new prospect.

"Steven, I'm going to head out for a minute. Can you?"

"I know, watch the money."

"You learn quick, kid." Then Anya left.

Connor and Dawn went into the training room. Connor had told Dawn he wanted to show her a few new moves she could use against vampires.

"First thing, of course, you want to keep your attacker in front of you, so you can block their attack. Like this." Connor and Dawn did a little sparring. Connor, playing the attacker, led with a right hook, which Dawn easily blocked. Then he threw a left hook, which she ducked under. Then he did a high right kick. She ducked, swept Connor's left leg, knocking him down.

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't have a problem with that. But vampires, they're big dumb beasts. They like to overpower people. So what do you do if they try this?" Connor grabbed Dawn's arms and pushed her back into the wall. Dawn thought that since this was Connor, force was good. But she figured he was serious, focused on fighting, not foreplay.

"Well, uh, I guess I'd be in trouble," Dawn replied.

Connor let go. "Exactly. You're great with the kicking and punching and all, but if they grapple with you all that stuff's useless. Then you need to know how to throw them, take them down, regain the upper hand."

"How do you suppose I'd toss around a big heavy vampire?"

"It's quite simple. Just leverage. Using their bulk against them. Now, you be the vampire. Grab me, like I did to you." Dawn did this. "Now, I don't try to push you away. I just pivot backwards, and toss you. Here, you try."

"You want me to toss you?"

"It's real easy. Just give it a try. I'll grab you. You pull my weight forwards, turn back, toss me over your shoulder. Relax, it's easy."

Connor grabbed Dawn as he had before. She did what he showed her. Connor was then on his back. His arms were above his head, and Dawn's hands held his wrists down. She was on top of him.

"So how to you escape from this hold?," Dawn asked Connor.

"I don't," he said, smiling.

Dawn realized what Connor was doing. Clever boy, she thought. Setting this whole thing up. Using training as foreplay. Clever boy indeed. She kissed him.

Anya was outside of the Bronze when she had second thoughts. Crashing a sound check might make her look a tad desperate. So she didn't go in, and she headed back to her store.

Connor heard her enter. "Anya's back," He told Dawn. The two of them got off the floor and tried to make themselves presentable, make it look like nothing had happened. They went out to greet Anya.

"Hi Anya. That was quick," Dawn said.

"Anything happen while I was gone?," Anya asked.

"No, of course not. What makes you think anything happened,?" Dawn asked defensively.

"What Dawn means is no one came in here while you were gone," Connor added.

"Good," Anya said. Then she looked at Connor. "Steven, your shirt's inside out. I didn't notice that earlier."

"Oh, yeah, neither did I. Thanks. All those years of clothes without tags inside, I'm still getting used to these kinds of clothes."

Connor and Dawn quickly walked out of the store. Connor said to Dawn "It's almost four. Wanna go to the theater?"

"But no good movies are playing there right now," Dawn answered.

"Who said I wanted to watch a movie?," Connor added. Dawn smiled. She liked the way Connor was thinking.

After the sound check Spike went home to relax for a few hours before the show. Willow needed someone to talk to about Zooey, so she went to Spike's place. After all, he knew them both. Spike also needed someone to talk to about Buffy. And after all, Willow knew them both. Willow sat on the couch. Spike was lying on his back, his head in Willow's lap. She was casually running her fingers through his hair. This was because Willow saw Spike in a completely non-sexual manner. So this kind of stuff was meaningless to her, because it was with Spike.

"Right now, with Buffy, we're in some sort of holding pattern. It's all up in the air. At least she no longer hates me."

"After killing the Camillus with you, she seemed real impressed. Said you were very brave."

Spike's eyes lit up. "She said I was brave?"

"I think her exact words were he was very brave, and didn't get scared when the demon attacked him, so he made a really good decoy.'"

Spike was less happy. "A decoy. So that's all she thinks I am."

"I believe she also said you were very clever. Or crafty. One of the two."

"Crafty. Now that's a compliment."

Willow tried to comfort Spike. "It's a matter of seeing the glass as half-empty or half full. Remember, a month ago the glass was completely empty. Buffy didn't even want to hear you name mentioned. So there's been progress. You gotta give her time. She's been through a lot with you. She has plenty of reasons not to trust you. So it will take her a while to realize that you're a good man."

Spike sat up and looked at Willow. "Good? You think I'm good?"

"That's what I've thought ever since you came back. You've been kind and sweet and vulnerable."

"Good, kind, sweet, vulnerable? What, have I turned into a pansy or something? I mean, you make me sound like some pathetic loser. You don't think I'm tough anymore?"

"There's really no pleasing you today, now is there Spike? Every time I say something good, you read it the wrong way. Not like you're the only one who's having trouble with compliments. Well, I mean, that's why I came here. Me and Zooey are doing great. Too great."

Willow then lied back in Spike's lap. Just as Willow didn't see Spike in a sexual way, Spike didn't see Willow in that way either. They found each other attractive, but never even gave a thought to acting upon it. Spike ran his finger through Willow's hair.

"Zooey is nuts about you, Will. Head over heels. To her you're the tops."

"That's the problem. I like being with her. She's a great person. But I don't want what she wants. Well, part of me does. But most of me knows it's wrong. I'm not ready to love another woman."

Spike realized what Willow's dilemma was. "Oh yes, Tara. She was the one. Your only one. So you figure there can never be another."

"Well, there can't. Nobody can replace Tara."

"Of course. But that doesn't mean you must consign yourself to a lifetime of loneliness. You think Tara was the sort of bird who, if anything happened to her, she'd want you to get yourself to a nunnery?"

"I wouldn't go that far. I guess she'd want me to be happy. Perhaps she'd understand if I eventually found someone else. But right now, it's too soon."

Spike now perceived two relevant but separate issues. "I can't tell you when it will no longer be too soon. That's for you to figure out. But I can tell you this – Zooey is not Tara. They're different people. One is not a replacement for the other. I'm just saying, hypothetically, if you did come to love Zooey, it wouldn't mean you don't still love Tara. It doesn't work like that.

"My point is, you'll know when you're ready. You'll feel it. If you don't, be honest and don't give Zooey false hopes. But if you do feel it, it's wrong to pretend you don't because you believe that being with Zooey will cheapen what you had with Tara. It won't. You deny your feelings and you're living a lie. And I don't think Tara would want you living a lie."

Xander and Connor had just finished dinner. Connor was on the couch watching television. Xander was in the kitchen, getting a bottle of beer from the fridge.

Connor wanted to talk. "Xander, can I ask you a question about sex?" At that moment, Xander was twisting off the cap. The question rattled him and when he opened the bottle foam shot up out the top.

"Okay. What's the question?"

"Well, I was just wondering, when is it normal to start."

This was not a conversation Xander ever wanted to have. It wasn't so much that Connor was talking about sex. It was that he was talking about sex with Dawn. From Xander's point of view, Connor was asking him when would be the right time to deflower Buffy's kid sister.

"To start what?," Xander said, playing dumb.

"You know. When was your first time?"

"Well, let's see. I was seventeen when I had that brief fling with the Slayer. No, not Buffy. Another Slayer, named Faith. Rather psychotic. She's in prison now. I'm not exactly nostalgic about the whole thing. See, it's good to wait. To wait for the right person."

"I agree with you Xander." At first Xander felt good about this. Then Connor made him feel otherwise. "Obviously it's wrong if you don't love the person. If they're not the one for you. But if you do find that one person you want to be with forever, then it's only proper to become one with them, to become of one flesh."

Xander found the phrase "one flesh" to be deeply nauseating, practically pornographic. He wondered where Connor picked up such smut. Actually, it's from the Bible.

Xander tried his best to preach abstinence. "Well, yes, I suppose that could be right. But, then again, if you do find that one person, aren't you supposed to wait until marriage? You know, that thing couples don't do when they're still in high school."

"So you know people who've done that? I mean, all your friends, none of them are married. Any of them waiting?"

Ouch. Connor had played the trump card. All Xander could do was use diversionary and delaying tactics. "Me and my friends are not good role models when it comes to relationships. We're kind of examples of what not to do. My entire dating history is one long cautionary tale. Anyway, I was thinking the two of us could do something tonight. Have you ever been bowling?"

"What's bowling?"

"It's a game. You knock down pins with a ball. It's a good way to take your mind off, problems. Get rid of, distractions. You should come with me and try it. Tonight."

First, Xander made a call to Buffy. "Buff, we have a problem. Steven just tried to have a talk with me – about sex. You know, the when is it the right time for your first time?' talk."

"You mean, the right time for, Steven and Dawn?"

"That was the insanely disturbing aspect of the whole thing. Of course I tried to convince him the right time was, well, in the infinitely distant future. But he's observant enough to know that me, and well, everyone else he knows doesn't exactly practice what I was preaching, so to speak. So I figure he wasn't asking for advice. He was making an announcement about his intentions. Like he was saying Xander, guess what I'm gonna be doing?'"

"Or who he'll be doing," Buffy said with obvious worry. "They have been getting hot and heavy, and she's constantly going on about how much they love each other. Really, I should have seen this coming."

"Especially after last night," Xander pointed out. "Sneaking out to go patrolling. You know what patrolling can lead to."

Buffy didn't need to be reminded about that. "I think I developed too much trust in Steven. I saw him as a fighter, a champion. But whatever else he is or may be, Steven's a teenage boy. And I don't have to tell you they're only after one thing."

"Don't remind me, please don't remind me," Xander told Buffy. "You don't how frightening it is to be on the other side of that equation. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, keep you appraised."

"Well, thanks for the warning. I'll make sure that when Dawn goes patrolling it's with me. I've been meaning to do spend more time with Dawn, bond with her. This just gives me all the more reason to do so."

This conversation made it apparent that neither Xander nor Buffy correctly understood the dynamics of the Connor-Dawn relationship. They were both operating on stereotypes. They saw an aggressive young man trying to take advantage of a passive and innocent young woman. But Dawn was clearly the dominant one in the relationship. And if either if them could be called innocent, it would have to be Steven. Only Spike recognized the true dynamics of Connor and Dawn's relationship.

Xander told Connor they would go bowling after he ran a quick errand. He drove over to the Magic Shop. Anya was surprised to see Xander.

"I'm looking for something in a de-lusting spell," Xander told her. When Xander tries to act protective, he usually overreacts and tries to do something foolish.

"So who is it you don't want to be lusting after?," Anya asked.

"It's not for me. It's for Steven. His feelings for Dawn are a bit too, intense. Not a complete de-lusting spell, mind you. Just something to cool him off a bit. So he's a little less, well, in heat."

"Oooh, I get it," Anya declared. "You're protecting Dawn's virginity. Just like a father would. Of course, you're also kind of like a father to Steven. Which for you makes the thought of the two of them fornicating even more disturbing, now, doesn't it?"

"Enough with the head shrinking Anya. And, father? That's just sick! On so many levels!"

"Sorry about that. I was just having a little fun distilling your dastardly dilemma to its purist essence. I'm not selling you anything. Mixing magic and hormones is like tap dancing on a floor soaked with nitroglycerine. Even by your standards, this is an incredibly stupid idea. On so many levels, I'm not even going to begin to enumerate them. When you walk out that door, which you are going to do in about five seconds, you'll realize what a mistake you were trying to make."

Xander walked out onto the sidewalk. And he realized something totally different. There was a green demon with little red horns in a yellow suit standing right next to him.

"Excuse me kind sir, but could you be polite enough to tell me where the Bronze is?," the demon asked Xander.

"Aaaahhhh!!!" was Xander's only response. He had learned that demons were almost always trouble. Xander ran away. The very polite demon ran after him.

"Please, sir. Please calm down. I just want directions. Just tell me where the Bronze is and I'll leave you alone." Finally, the demon caught Xander, turned him around, looked him in the eyes, and held Xander by the shoulders so he could not run away.

"Yes, I know, I'm a demon. But honestly, do I look dangerous? Do I look like I could kill you? Where are my giant teeth? My razor sharp claws? My ferociously muscular body? I don't have them. Relax. I don't want to hurt you. I just want directions. So, if you could, please tell me where a nightclub called the Bronze is."

Xander slowly stopped hyperventilating. Deadly demons didn't usually talk. And almost never in complete paragraphs. Besides, if he told the demon what it wanted to know, it would probably leave him alone.

"Go down this road one block to the light. Make a left. Go for two blocks. Make another left. Go one block, make a right. The Bronze will be on your left."

"There. Now was that so bad.? Thank you very much." With that, the demon went back to his car and followed Xander's directions to the Bronze. Xander's breathing returned to normal and he stopped sweating. He went back to his car, drove home, then drove Connor to the bowling alley.

"You think a guy who lives on the Hellmouth wouldn't almost wet his pants at the sight of little old me," The demon said as he started his car. The demon in question owned a club in Las Vegas called Caritas. He had heard great things about the band which was performing tonight at the Bronze. He had been expanding beyond kareoke and was booking more professional acts. He found that in Vegas, in order to bring in the bodies, you needed to put on a good show.

As he drove to the Bronze, he listened on his car stereo to Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming," singing along to the buoyant horn riff (do-do-do do–do-do–do, do-do-do do–do-do–do). He found a parking spot near the club and entered.

As he entered, Spike was singing "Dark End Of The Street:"

"at the dark end of the street

that's where we'll always meet

hiding in shadows where we don't belong

living in darkness to hide our wrong."

The demon was familiar with this oft-covered soul classic. He really liked the song, and he thought Spike's version was oddly compelling. He soon found out how odd, and how compelling. As Spike sang he heard his thoughts. He heard far more than he bargained for. He needed a stiff drink.

"Bartender, a double Manhattan. Make that two double Manhattans."

The bartender stared in disbelief at the creature talking to him. The demon realized what was the issue. "Oh, this," he said, pointing to his green face and red horns. "It's makeup. I'm in a production of Rocky Horror' later tonight," he explained, then singing the line Let's do the time warp again' for effect. The bartender accepted the explanation, and gave him the drinks.

"There weren't any Anagogic demons in Rocky Horror,'" a man ten feet down the bar said to the demon.

The demon looked stunned. "That's what you are, right? You read people's thoughts when they sing." The demon was still stunned and silent. "I know you can talk. Come on fella. You got a name? Mine's Marcus."

"Lorne. That's my name. Nice to meet you Marcus."

Marcus explained. "Nice to meet you Lorne. Didn't mean to scare you like that. I'm kind of familiar with your kind. The wives of singers hire Anagogic demons to listen to their husbands and see if they're unfaithful, find out who they're sleeping with. Frank Sinatra fed and clothed three generations of your kind. Gotta admit, not a bad gig, getting paid to listen to Ol' Blue Eyes."

"Are you a musician?," Lorne asked.

"I was. After I got married, I got a day job as an insurance salesman. Had to do the settling down thing. But before that, when I still had my freedom, I was a piano player. Most of my paying gigs were cabaret. But at heart I'm a jazzman. Art Tatum. Thelonious Monk."

"Wasn't Monk part Shuvash demon?," Lorne wondered.

"That's an urban legend," Marcus explained. "It was thought that was the only way he could play in all those amazing harmonics. But he was all human."

"All too human," Lorne added, referring to Monk's lifelong battle with mental illness.

"Aren't we all," Marcus added ruefully. "So Lorne, what business are you in? Music or mindreading?"

"Mostly music. I'm a lounge singer. Actually, I'm a lounge singer who owns his own lounge. Caritas, in Las Vegas. I do some mind-reading, but only if the people singing want me to. Here's my card. If you're ever out on the Strip, please do drop by. I can always use a good piano player."

Lorne finished his two drinks. At the back of the dance floor, he spotted one of his own kind. She didn't look it, but Lorne could tell. He went up to her, touched her shoulder, and said "reveal."

Anya realized she had on her demon face. She was mighty embarrassed. Someone might see. Sterling might see. And by now Anya had looked at him long enough to know he was really cute.

Anya turned to face Lorne. "I wish you'd stop that," she said in her low demon voice, making her pleadings sound quite funny.

"I'm not the one who has the power to grant wishes," Lorne joked.

"It's my job to hurt men. You wanna be next?," Anya threatened.

"You think I just fell off the turnip truck, sugar? You can't grant your own wishes. You think you scare me?"

"I wasn't talking about those powers. I was talking about punching you in the mouth so hard my hand will go down your throat and rip out your larynx. Scared now?"

Actually, Lorne was. The vengeance demon sounded serious. Lorne touched Anya again. "Conceal," he said, and she returned to human form.

Anya was still pissed. "What's your problem? Is that how you pick up women?," she angrily asked Lorne.

He laughed. "You thought I was hitting on you? Hitting on a Vengeance Demon? That's funny. Who would be stupid enough to want to date a Vengeance Demon? What, you think I want to have my life ruined? I was just glad to see another demon in the place. Wanted to say hi."

"I'm not a demon," Anya told Lorne.

"Oh, of course. You vengeance demons are half-breeds. And I bet now you're at that point where you're not sure which team you want to play for. At least you have a choice. I can't change my face. But I understand what you're going through. Sorry to pull that trick. Wasn't the nicest way of introducing myself. Name's Lorne. What's yours?"

"Anya."

"Anyaka!!?, a stunned Lorne asked.

"That's what they used to call me."

"The . . . Anyaka? I don't believe it! I'm talking to Anyaka! The defender of scorned women everywhere. You're a living legend! You have to be the most famous person I ever met, and believe me, I've known some legends in my time."

This pleased Anya. "A legend. I never saw it that way. Cool. I'm like, famous. A celebrity."

"You're more than that. What celebrity actually helps their fans when they're in need? If a woman loses her husband, is Julia Roberts going to show up and grant her wish?"

"Actually, it would probably be Julia Roberts who stole the woman's husband in the first place," Anya joked.

"You're catty. I like that. Nice to have met you. And Anya, the drummer's a nice catch."

Lorne began to walk away. Anya said "how'd you know?"

Lorne turned around "I'm a demon. I have powers of my own."

Lorne went off to a dark corner where he wouldn't attract too much attention and listened some more to Spike. Just when Lorne thought he had left Angel's world, he found himself pulled back in. In addition, he learned that Connor was in town. This scared Lorne. He did not want to cross paths with that kid again.

Xander and Connor were all ready to bowl. Connor began his first frame. He approached the lane and threw the bowling ball overhand at the pins, like he was throwing a baseball. The pins were more than knocked down. They were practically shattered. The noise of the ball crashing into the pins and then crashing into the floor startled everyone in the building, who looked in Connor's direction. Xander was very embarrassed.

"Steven, you're supposed to roll the ball underhand." He showed Connor the motion. Connor thought he understood.

Connor lined up for his second frame. He threw the ball underhand, like a pitcher in fast-pitch softball. The ball shot through the pins like a cannon-ball, and crashed into the back of the lane. Everyone looked at Connor once again. Xander worried they were about to get kicked out.

"Steven. You roll the ball. On the ground."

"What's wrong with what I did? I knocked down all the pins. That's what I'm supposed to do, right?"

"Yes, but you're only supposed to use two dimensions," Xander explained. (Perhaps dimensions was the wrong word to use when explaining something to Connor. I could give him the completely wrong idea.) "The ball goes on the ground. It hits the pins, which are on the ground. The ball is not supposed to fly through the air."

"But through the air is so much easier. The point of the game is to get the best score, right? And this is how I'll get the best score." The way he was going, Connor could have "bowled" a 300. That is, if he didn't destroy the lane and the pins trying to do it.

"Now, through the air works. I see that. But you're damaging the floor and the pins. The guy who owns this place, he's not going to like it if you damage and break his stuff. He'll probably ask you to leave. If you throw the ball in the air once more, I'm almost positive he'll kick us both out. So instead, roll the ball like I do, play the game that way, and nobody gets upset."

"I don't want to break anything. So I'll give it a try. I still think my way's better."

For Lorne, listening to Spike's thoughts was like reading a Victor Hugo novel – only much trashier. There were some things Lorne wished he had not learned. But overall, listening to Spike was captivating. And Lorne thought his music wasn't bad either.

When the concert was over, Lorne approached Spike. "Hello Spike. I'm a club owner in Vegas, and I'm interested in booking your band."

Spike looked Lorne over. "You're a Pylean, aren't you?"

Since coming to Sunnydale, Lorne had met three men. Two of them knew what he was. This was unusual. But then again, people who live on a Hellmouth know a thing or two about demons. "Yes I am. My name's Lorne."

Meanwhile, Anya approached Sterling. He was a little over six feet tall, gawky but muscular. He had thick, nearly shoulder-length black hair with blonde streaks.

"Hi, I'm Anya. I'm a friend of Spike's. Actually, I'm his boss."

"Yes. I've seen you there. Great to finally meet you, Anya. My name's Sterling."

"I don't know much about music, but I thought you did very well with the pounding and beating and the smashing."

"That's the good thing about being a drummer. You get paid to beat things."

"But the bad thing is that you're hidden behind all that stuff. Everyone else gets to prance and preen around on stage for everyone to see. You're stuck in the background."

"Anya, you seem to know more about music than you think. Drums aren't for prima donnas. We're the bricklayers of rock music. But without us to keep time, everyone else on stage would be lost. They wouldn't know what to do, or when to do it."

It was ironic that Sterling referred to himself as a "bricklayer" because Spike used to call Xander a "glorified bricklayer." Anya missed the irony, which was just as well. She wanted Sterling to make her forget about Xander.

"So, Sterling, wanna go to my apartment?"

Sterling gasped. Anya's forwardness literally took his breath away. Anya realized there had been a miscommunication.

"Uh, no, I didn't mean it that way. I mean, I'm not asking you to spend the night. Not tonight, after we've only met a few minutes ago."

Sterling tried to cover up his assumption. "Of course. I know that. I wasn't thinking that you wanted to . . . no, I certainly wasn't thinking you were that kind of woman. And I'm certainly not that type of guy."

Anya tried to explain. "What I meant was we should go someplace and talk, get to know each other better, cause you seem to me like a good guy to get to know. I just figured that most of coffee shops and restaurants are closed at this hour."

"You definitely seem like the type of woman I'd like to know better. There's a nice diner about five miles from here. Sometimes I like to go there for a bite to eat after a gig. If you want, we could go there."

Anya smiled. "I'd like that," she told Sterling. They headed out the door.

Meanwhile Spike was getting to know a new demon. "Nice to meet you Lorne. But I thought Pyleans were a race of warriors. No offense, but you don't look like much of a fighter."

"I'm more of a lover than a fighter. Actually, I'm neither. I'm a singer, like yourself. I'm kind of the black sheep of my clan. The thing is, my people don't have music. Growing up, I always knew something was missing. So as soon as I could I got outta there and came here. When I saw James Brown at the Apollo in 1972, I knew I had found my new home. I mean this planet, not Harlem. I love Harlem. I worship the Apollo. But I was a bit nervous, being the only demon in the theater."

"You were nervous? I was at that show. You thought you were nervous? I was the only white guy!" Then Spike realized he had dated himself. "Did you say 72? Oh, I thought you said 82. See, that's when I was"

"No need to explain, Spike. I know your secret."

"What, do all the demons know about me by now?"

"No. Pyleans are Anagogic. I can hear people's thoughts when they sing."

Spike felt violated. "You broke into my mind without my permission? You rummaged around and uncovered my darkest secrets? That's sick, man! You're the Peeping Tom of the demon world."

"I'm sorry, I can't help it. I just came here to scout your band. I had no idea you had such a backstory. Now that I know the details, I do feel a little dirty, like I need to take a shower or something. But I must say, you're a beautiful cat. That thing you did for that girl, made me kind of misty in the eyes. And I've seen Gardars, so I know how tough they are to kill. You're a real champion."

"A champion. Bloody hell, that's so lame," Spike responded.

Lorne thought about it. "I guess it is kinda square. And I see from your rock star posing you're into the whole bad boy thing."

"When you've you've been playing the part for a century, it becomes second nature," Spike explains.

The reference to the distant past reminded Lorne of something he wanted to tell Spike. "I don't mean to pry, but this Angel fellow, he shouldn't make you insecure. Sure, he has a soul. But does he got Soul? Could he get up on stage and do what you do?"

Spike smiled. "You're right. He's got no Soul. No bloody rhythm. Couldn't carry a tune to save his soul, excuse the pun."

"Sounds a bit like my brothers back in Pylea. Big tough guys who can fight, but can't sing, can't dance, don't know the first thing about getting down. Is that what he's like?"

Spike smiled and chuckled. "Exactly. Perfect fit. I've met a few Pyleans in my time. All they cared about was the thrill of battle, overcoming impossible odds, risking their lives without a clue why they were doing it. Way I figure, if you don't have breakbeats, if you don't have ear-splitting feedback, if you don't have Soul, what is there to fight for?"

Lorne put his arm around Spike's shoulder. "Spike, you're my kinda fella. And your band, I dig. You got some people behind you who can really play. Here's my card. Give me a call, tell me when you can make it out to my desert dive, and your band's got itself a gig."

Lorne walked out of the Bronze. As he walked to his car, he heard a man singing in the alley. The man was singing "When The Children Are Asleep," from the musical "Cabaret:"

"When the children are asleep we sit and dream,

the things that every other dad and mother dream.

When the children are asleep and lights are low,

if I still love you the way I love you today,

you'll pardon my sayin', I told you so...

When the children are asleep, I'll dream with you.

We'll think what fun we have had and be glad

that it's all came true."

Lorne was a big fan of this musical about love, family, human weakness, damnation and salvation. This song occurs early in the musical, and is sung optimistically, by a man and a woman who are getting married and believe they will live happily ever after. But the version Lorne heard now was sung in a minor key. It was a song of resignation, an elegy to dashed dreams. It was poignant, and it was excellently sung, with exquisitely precise phrasing.

Then Lorne heard something else. He heard the man's thoughts. He heard something horrible. He knew people would be in danger. And he knew the only one who could protect them was the Slayer.

From having read Angel's and Spike's minds, as well as Cordelia's, Lorne knew what Buffy's house looked like and could approximate its location. (Lorne never heard Cordelia think about Buffy. But he did catch a glimpse of the time the maggot man attacked her and Xander at Buffy's house, so this helped him locate the house.) After a little driving around, Lorne was sure he had found the right place. He parked on the street, walked up to her door, and rang the doorbell. Dawn came to the door.

"Hello, young lady. Is Buffy Summers home?"

Dawn looked suspiciously at the demon at the door. She was hesitant to let him inside until Buffy had a look at him. Dawn yelled for Buffy, who was upstairs. "Buffy! There's a green demon in a loud suit at the door. He wants to speak with you!"

"You think my suit is loud?," Lorne asked Dawn.

"You look like a banana."

"That's just unfair. Bright colors, yellows and purples, go with my green skin. I have to consider my complexion. Can you imagine me in a sensible dark suit? That would really look ridiculous."

Buffy came to the door. "You wanted to speak with me?"

"You are the Slayer, are you not?"

"You're a demon and you don't know that? How clueless are you?"

"Oh, I know who you are. (Buffy had no idea how much Lorne knew about her.) Point is, I'm here because you are the Slayer. A demon will rise tonight and kill many people. So, naturally, you're the one to stop it. Am I right?"

"If I had a nickel for every time someone gave me this speech I wouldn't need a day job."

Lorne walked inside and sat down in Buffy's living room. "I'll take that as a yes. Now if you could turn the sarcasm down a notch I'll give you the details."

Buffy and Dawn walked into the living room. "So you're a friendly demon?," Dawn asked.

"I think it's pretty obvious that if I was an unfriendly demon I wouldn't last too long. I'm not exactly cut out for fighting and killing."

Buffy and Dawn sat down opposite Lorne. "So what are you then?," Buffy asked.

"Name's Lorne. I'm a Pylean. My people are fighters. I'm the sensitive one in the family, the one my parents are disgraced by. I'm a singer. I own a club called Caritas in Las Vegas. Check it out if you're ever in town. (Lorne couldn't resist a plug.) Also, I'm Anagogic, meaning I can read people's minds when they sing. People come by, do kareoke, ask me to help them like I'm their shrink. It's a marketable skill. Gives me an edge on the competition."

"You read people's minds," Buffy began. "I did that once. It was cool at first. Then it got annoying. Then I went insane."

Lorne explained why he hadn't gone nuts. "Humans are too weak to mindread, even Slayer humans. You lack the capacity to process the data. Being a demon, I can turn some voices off and listen to only one at a time, or none at a time. It's like having volume control and a tuner. Makes the gift manageable."

A demon who read people's thoughts while they sang. To Dawn, this sounded familiar and suspicious. "Lorne, I have to tell you something. A demon came here a year ago and made the whole town sing and dance and then he killed people and tried to kidnap me. You're not trying to do that are you?"

Lorne thought this is the most adorable idea he'd ever heard. "An entire town singing and dancing! I wish I had been here to see that. How precious! How Busby Berkeley! Well, except for the part about the killing and the kidnapping. I don't believe in going that far in the pursuit of art."

Buffy was still unsure why Lorne was there. "You're from Las Vegas. So what's the deal, you heard something out there about this town, and drove hundreds of miles to tell me?"

"No, of course not. Wouldn't that be odd. I was in town to check out a band that was playing tonight at the Bronze. I wanted to book them for my club. I was very impressed. Great band. And Spike, the lead singer, real star quality. By the way, I loved that club. All ages, $5 cover, live music every night, amazing thing to have in such a small town, especially for you young people."

Buffy knew Spike was playing at the Bronze tonight. Lorne knew all about Spike and Buffy. But Lorne preferred that people knew less about him than he knew about them. He wasn't going to let Buffy know that he was good friends with Angel. And he was going to act as if he knew little about Buffy's history with Spike.

Buffy immediately realized the problem. "You heard Spike sing. So does that mean you read his mind, that you know his thoughts, his memories?"

Lorne tried to downplay what he knew. "Not memories. I can just hear what's on a person's mind at a given moment. Their thoughts, hopes, dreams at that one instant. Nothing about past actions. To be honest, if I could hear memories, I wouldn't want to hear people sing. Too much information, if you know what I mean."

Dawn wanted to shift the conversation onto less uncomfortable ground. "So you've heard about Spike's band way out in Vegas? I didn't know they were so famous."

"I wouldn't call them famous. Let's just say they've become one of hundreds of bands club owners on the West Coast know about. They're new, so word spreads and people in the business get a little excited. Always looking for fresh blood, I guess." Lorne privately revelled in his little pun on Spike's past.

Buffy laughed. "So they're like vampires?," she playfully asked Lorne.

"Worse. They like to find wide-eyed young people and take their souls and suck them dry. Except you can't stake them through the heart. Actually, a few of them you can. But only a few."

Buffy couldn't take all the dancing around the obvious. "Enough with the teases Lorne. Let's just end this: what do you know about Spike, having read his mind and all."

"Finally. The tension was killing me!," Lorne exclaimed. "Yes, I know he was a vampire who became human a few months ago. And I know that he has certain unresolved romantic feelings for you, Buffy. Obviously, this must be very odd for you, given the circumstances. So perhaps it's best that we drop it. I'm not here to pry into your personal life."

Dawn couldn't resist a chance to look inside Spike's head. "Did you hear anything in Spike's head about me, Dawn?"

"I don't know what it meant, but I picked up something about how he's glad you aren't mad at him, because if you were he'd be afraid, because you're becoming powerful like your sister."

"He's afraid of me," Dawn said with evident pride. "I can make people afraid of me!"

"I know you didn't come here to talk about Spike," Buffy said to Lorne. "You mentioned something about a demon appearing tonight. So let's get down to business."

"Outside of the club I heard a man singing . He was planning to make a demon rise. The demon will be appearing in about 40 minutes. I don't know the name of the location where it will appear, but I can take you to the spot. We should get going. I'll explain the details on the way."

Buffy went to her weapons chest. "Since you know what I'll be facing, what do you suggest?," she asked Lorne.

He looked at her arsenal. "The ax would be best. Also that hammer would be helpful."

Buffy took those out. "You want anything for yourself?," she asked Lorne.

"Whatever you give me, chances are I'd use it to hurt myself rather than the demon. I'm not too good with weapons."

"Well you need something, just in case," Buffy told him. She pulled out the knife the Mayor had given Faith. "Here, take this," she said.

She casually tossed the knife to Lorne. He screamed and moved out of the way as if it were a live hand grenade. "What are you trying to do, kill me?"

"Jeez, you are bad with weapons. But take it. Actually, keep it. It was never one of my favorites. It just wasn't me."

Lorne picked up the knife and took a look and its sharp and ornate blades. "Well, I could always use it to fillet fish or slice garlic real thin." He took it and left with Buffy.

As they walked, Lorne explained. "It's called an Araxes demon. Walks upright. A little over six feet tall. Muscular. Claws, teeth, what you'd expect. You can kill it by stabbing its heart or severing its spine. But you can't behead it. In fact, its head is invulnerable, so don't waste your time trying to hurt the demon there.

"The Araxes demon is not naturally occurring. It rises when a human being in possession of very ancient magics performs a spell and unites with a Kantu demon. The Kantu is a harmless demon by itself. But when forcibly fused with a human it turns into an Araxes. The Kantu dies when the Araxes is born. But if we kill the Araxes right after it rises, there is a chance the human being can be saved."

Araxes was an ancient Greek corruption of an early Indo-European word for river. The Araxes demon was created by the joining of two "rivers," the person and the Kantu demon. Neither of these "rivers" is strong by itself. But when they converge they form the Araxes, which is mighty.

Buffy was upset, as she always was when people, people with souls, sought to commit evil. "Wonderful. The innocent Kantu dies. But the evil human who turned himself into a killer demon can still live. Why would a person turn themself into a monster? Just so they could cause as much harm as possible?"

"That would be one reason," Lorne answered. "Our fella, the one who's about to go demon, he already thinks he's a monster. He betrayed his wife, the only woman he ever loved. Because of this, he thinks he's evil. So he's given up. He can't go on living."

"Isn't that what suicide's for?," Buffy asked. It was a very insensitive but also entire appropriate question.

"If he does that, his wife will think she drove him to it. He knows that would scar her for life. So he's killing himself by becoming something else."

"What a considerate guy," Buffy scoffed. "He doesn't want to hurt his wife. So he'll become a monster which can hurt and kill lots of other people."

"Buffy, I think you're operating on a far higher moral plane than this fellow. Anyone who wants to turn themself into a killer demon to escape their problems is already a few tacos short of a combination plate, if you get my drift."

Clem was walking down the street with Jared, a demon friend of his. Clem saw Jared disappear, without warning. He just vanished. Clem was scared. He ran home. If someone was vaporizing demons, he didn't want to be next.

Lorne could see the spot where the demon would rise. He pointed it out to Buffy. She walked on about 20 feet ahead of him. "Buffy, I want to say thanks. Thank you for taking the time to help me."

"What can I say, it's my job."

"Toughest job I can think of," Lorne added. "You must have to deal with stuff like this all the time."

"Around here, something's always happening," Buffy told Lorne.

A few nights ago, when Buffy came home from patrolling, she flipped on the tv and saw the beginning of the Talking Heads' concert film "Stop Making Sense." The second song they performed, entitled "Heaven," resonated with Buffy, for reasons which are all too obvious to anyone who's heard the song. As she walked, Buffy started quietly singing the chorus:

"Heaven, heaven is a place.

A place where nothing, nothing ever happens.

Heaven, heaven is a place.

A place where nothing, nothing ever happens."

It should be pointed out that the chorus is preceded by the line "it's hard to imagine, that nothing at all, could be so exciting, could be this much fun." Buffy didn't sing this line. But, more than anyone on earth, she understood how true it was.

Buffy was far enough in front of Lorne that she felt alone. She didn't think he could hear her, much less read her mind. But Lorne could, and did. He hadn't come to Buffy to give her advice. But now he felt compelled to. Of course, to give her advice immediately after she was singing would be tactless. So Lorne waited until they arrived at the site of the rising. He checked his watch. They were five minutes early. Plenty of time for what he wanted to say.

"Buffy, I don't mean to meddle, but there's something I want to tell you. No one's put in this world to be happy. You must know that better than anyone. All this lonely, dangerous, thankless toil you perform. All the heroes who get parades, who get immortalized on stamps and in movies and books, I imagine that as the Slayer you've done more to help the world than all of them combined. At what does that get you? You get to live another day. You get do it all over again. It's like being trapped in Purgatory, except you're not being punished for anything you did. You're being punished for being you.

"What I'm trying to say is, no one is meant to be happy, to be truly, perfectly, contentedly happy. If we're lucky, we get one or two chances. We let them pass us by, and we end up alone. So if in the future someone comes along who wants to make you happy, you should to give them a chance, even though most of the time they'll end up making you miserable. It's no good to be miserable, but if you don't take the risk, you might never find the one who can make you happy. And no one deserves to be happy more than you do. Sorry. I don't know why, but I just needed to say that."

Lorne had made his case for Spike in the most abstract manner possible. His advice was so abstract Buffy didn't even know what it meant. Buffy never got a chance to ask Lorne what he meant, because a few seconds after Lorne stopped talking, the Araxes appeared. It was as Lorne had described it to Buffy. It had reddish brown rust-colored skin and bright green eyes. His head was large. Its bottom half was shaped like a triangle, with two sides of the triangle meeting at the chin. The top-half of the head was oval in shape.

"Congratulations on being born. Savor these moments, since they'll be your only moments," Buffy told the monster. It charged her. She kicked it in the chest, knocking it back a few feet. Buffy closed in. The Araxes threw a right hook. Buffy ducked and punched it a few times in the stomach.

The demon grabbed her and wanted to throw her. But Buffy escaped from the hold, grabbed the demon's left arm, and threw it to the ground. Lorne was very impressed. He knew she was this strong. But Angel always made her sound taller. The combination of petiteness and superstrength was something which had to be seen up close to be believed.

When the demon was on the ground Buffy pulled out her ax and swung for the monster's chest. He reached up and grabbed the ax handle. As Buffy struggled to keep him from ripping the weapon out of her hands, the Araxes kicked her in the stomach. Buffy flew back and fell to the ground. The Araxes stood up.

Buffy did manage to hold on to the ax. But she decided to put away the weapon for know and continue fighting the demon hand-to-hand, since that had been working so well. Buffy leaped in the air, stepped in the demon's chest with her left foot, then kicked the demon's chest with her right. He stumbled backwards. Buffy kicked the Araxes a few more times in the chest, then punched it six times in the chest. Then she kicked it in the kneecap, causing one of its legs to buckle. Buffy grabbed the demon by the arms and threw him back into the trunk of a tree. He looked like he was was done for.

Buffy pulled out her ax and drove it into the Araxes' head. In the heat of combat, she forgot that his head was invulnerable. When she drove it halfway into his head, and he showed no reaction, she remembered. She pulled the ax out and backed up. The sizable head wound caused by the ax healed in seconds.

The Araxes boxed Buffy in the ears with his two big paws. Then he hit her with two right jabs in the face. She dropped the ax. Then he grabbed her with his left hand, picked her up, and threw her to the ground.

He approached Buffy as she lay on the ground. When he got close, Buffy tried to sweep his legs out from under him. The Araxes was smart enough to anticipate this move and jump up out of the way. Buffy bounded up before he could land a blow on her while she was down.

The ax was on the ground, and Araxes was between her and the ax. So Buffy pulled out the hammer, the weapon Lorne recommended. She backed away from the Araxes so she had room to wield it. The Araxes threw a right jab. Buffy hit the fist with her hammer. As you can imagine, this really hurt.

Buffy swung and hit the Araxes on the top of its collarbone. She swung again and hit it square in the sternum. This blow would have killed a human by instantly stopping the heart. But of course as a demon the Araxes could withstand the blow, although it did hurt quite a bit.

The Araxes hit Buffy with a left jab. When she tried to swing the hammer again, the demon hit her hard in the ribs with a left hook. Buffy realized the monster could now only fight effectively with one hand. So her ran around the right side of the monster. He tried to grab her, but his shattered right hand was too weak to grip her.

Buffy now delivered two fierce blows to the demon's back, trying to shatter its spine. The blows caused the demon great suffering, but its spine remained intact. The Araxes quickly turned to face Buffy. She realized she needed a cutting weapon to stab it through the heart.

After Buffy lost her ax, Lorne was conscientious enough to run around behind the Araxes and pick it up. Now that she had moved behind the Araxes, Buffy was about ten feet in front of Lorne. Buffy turned quickly to look for her ax. Lorne threw it to her. She grabbed the ax with her right hand, and dropped the hammer, which was in her left hand.

Recognizing the danger he was in, the Araxes leaped at Buffy. He hoped to knock her down, land on top of her, and let his teeth do the rest. Buffy saw him in time to swing her ax and send it through the demon's heart. His weight and momentum caused the Araxes to fall on top of Buffy. After deadpanning "this reminds me why I like to be on top," Buffy pushed him off of her and stood up.

It was obvious the demon was dead. Buffy pulled her ax out of his chest and picked up her hammer. "Looks like the guy who conjured this thing didn't make it. At least he took no one with him. Lorne, thanks for your help. Always good to meet a friendly demon." Buffy walked away and headed for home.

Lorne had not given up hope. He looked carefully at the corpse. Imbedded in the demon's neck was a gold necklace containing small, flat disks of lapis lazuli. At the center of the necklace, just under the demon's chin, was a flat, two inch-wide onyx disk. There were carvings on the disk of a cone crossed by two arrows.

This was an extremely ancient Indo-European priestly symbol, something which would have been worn on the Eurasian steppe 5,000 years ago. Lorne knew it had something to do with magic. He figured this was what allowed the man to transform himself into an Araxes. He thought that if he could remove the necklace he could save the man.

But the necklace was imbedded in the demon's flesh. Lorne would have to cut it out. So he took out the knife Buffy gave him and began this unpleasant task. He needed something to distract him from the gore. He remembered that the guy who summoned the Araxes, the man he was trying to save, was singing a song from "Carousel." So Lorne quietly began singing "You'll Never Walk Alone," as he went about trying to save the man:

"When you walk through a storm keep your chin up high,

and don't be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm is a golden sky,

and the sweet, silver song of a lark."

At that point Lorne had cut the necklace loose. He stopped and listened. He heard something move inside the Araxes' chest. So he took the knife and sliced open the demon's chest from neck to waist. As he did, he sang a bit louder:

"Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain,

though your dreams be tossed and blown."

When he pulled back the skin, he saw something curled up in a ball in the lower right side portion of the chest. He reached in to grab it. What he grabbed felt a lot like a person's arm. When he touched it, it moved. Lorne saw a hand. He grabbed hold and pulled the man out of the demon.

The man fell to the ground on his knees. He was covered in the Araxes' gooey green fluid. But he was breathing. He was alive. Lorne couldn't resist the moment. He sang at full volume the song's, and the musical's stirring finale:

"Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,

and you'll never walk alone.

You'll never walk alone!"

The man stayed on his knees, vomiting up all the green fluid in his lungs. Lorne saw the man wretching. "Oh, come on now, my singing wasn't that bad!"

The man rubbed his eyes and wiped the goo off his face. Lorne recognized the man. "Marcus?, Marcus!"

"Wh–wha–where am I?," a disoriented Marcus asked Lorne.

"Oh god. Oh god. It was you. You did this."

"What's happening?," a still-disoriented Marcus asked as he slowly stood up.

"You got a second chance. You tried to sell your soul to the devil, but he wasn't buying. You screwed up big time. You gave up. But someone wasn't ready to give up on you."

Lorne was saying God wasn't ready to give up on Marcus. But, in reality, it was Lorne who wasn't ready to give up on Marcus. It was Lorne who saved Marcus. Lorne didn't realize this double meaning. He didn't realize that if God did save Marcus, he did so through Lorne, which would make Lorne an agent of God. It would kind of make Lorne an angel.

Marcus looked at Lorne. "Oh my God, it's you. The lounge-singing demon. What are you doing here?"

"Saving you from yourself." That reminded Lorne. He spotted the necklace on the ground and snatched it up, so Marcus could never use it to do harm again. He'd take it back to Vegas and let Groo smash it into powder.

Lorne could tell Marcus did not yet fully comprehend what had happened. "Marcus, go home. Actually, first get yourself cleaned up, put on some new clothes. Then go home. Trust me, she'll forgive you. After all, you're gonna have a kid together."

"What!!!," Marcus yelled.

Lorne had no idea what he was talking about. The thing about Marcus's wife being pregnant, that was baseless intuition. But Lorne explained. "Come on Marcus. You remember Carousel. You know what happens. Just don't go committing any armed robberies." (In "Carousel," the protagonist holds up a store a get money to provide for his infant daughter. In the course of the robbery, he is shot and killed.)

Lorne looked at his knife. He wiped it against the ground to get off the green goo. This was the first time that knife had been used to save a human life. Lorne walked back to his car, satisfied with his one-day excursion out of Vegas. Never had he done so much to help so many people in so little time.

But not everyone would be proud of what Lorne had said and done that evening. Angel would certainly feel betrayed on some level. After all Angel had done for Lorne, he went off and became Spike's volunteer public relations flack. But Lorne would consider this ludicrous. After all, Angel had Cordelia. And even Angel would admit he couldn't sing and lacked rhythm.

Lorne got in his car and began the drive home. As he headed through Sunnydale, he passed Xander and Connor. None of them saw each other. Xander had rented Akira Kurosawa's "Ran," a Japanese adaptation of "King Lear" which features some spectacular battle scenes and the best blood splatters ever captured on color film. Xander knew Connor would like the violence. And perhaps the violence would take his mind off sex.

As Lorne left Sunnydale, he was listening to Jackie Wilson's breathtakingly beautiful "To Be Loved:"

"Someone to care, someone to share,

lonely hours, and moments of despair.

To be loved, to be loved, oh what a feeling to be loved."

It was a bittersweet moment. Lorne knew loneliness. It's not like many women go for the green guy. And it was almost impossible to find a nice Pylean girl in this dimension. At least he was only 60 years old, so he still had practically his whole adult life ahead of him. Anagogic Pyleans live to be at least 200.

Buffy got home and went upstairs to check on Dawn.

"So I take it the demon's dead?," Dawn asked.

"Just like always."

"Do you know where Steven is? No one answers at Xander's."

"Xander told me he was taking Steven bowling tonight."

"Bowling? Xander trying to bond with him or something?"

"Dawn, I'm going out now for a quick patrol. I'll be back in a little while." Then Buffy went up to Dawn and hugged her tight. "I just want you to know I love you so much."

Dawn was worried. "Buffy, is something wrong? Are you dying? Am I dying!!"

"No Dawn. No one's dying. I just wanted to let you know that I love you and that I'm really proud of you."

Dawn was still worried. "Buffy, if this were a movie, you'd die in the next scene. I just want you to know I love you' is the queen of jinxes. You're really tempting fate. So please, be careful out there."

"Dawn, isn't telling you I'll be careful another royal jinx? Maybe not the queen, but certainly the duchess of jinxes. Besides, if this were a movie, I'd die when I had one day until retirement. Slayer's never retire."

Dawn didn't have to worry, since Buffy wasn't even going patrolling. She had realized what Lorne's little speech meant. And she was going to pay a visit to Spike.

Spike was in his crypt, playing the introduction to Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet" on his acoustic guitar. Heard the door open and turned to see Buffy. "What's that light?," she asked.

Spike realized that he had left the lid off the chest which contained the glowing Acacia crystal. "Uh, that's just a halogen bulb. I can turn it off if you'd like."

"No. I don't mind the light," Buffy told him. "I have something I need to tell you. I deserve better than you, Spike. And you don't deserve me. You deserved to be swept up in someone's dustpan a long time ago. But I've learned that in this world people don't get what they deserve.

"Spike, you've hurt me again and again. Every time I give you a chance, you give me a reason to regret it. And here I am, standing in a room which holds nothing but bad memories for me, giving you another chance."

Spike's eyes lit up. Buffy's opening diatribe had maximized the surprise. Here he was expecting her to bury him, and instead she answering his prayers (that is if he actually prayed, which he didn't).

Buffy continued. "I'm giving you a chance to surprise me, Spike. To show me that you can be a decent man. Someone I can be proud, rather than ashamed, to be with. Let's start over. Do this differently. See if we can get to know each other vertically."

Spike stood there, trying to figure out the meaning of Buffy's last sentence. After a few seconds he got it. "Oh! You mean vertically, as opposed to knowing each other horiz-. Oh, I get it." Spike thought about this for a few seconds and got worried. "This isn't going to become an eternal, defining facet of our relationship, is it? Say, a year goes by, and everything's great. Then we can reconsider this little experiment, can't we?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. Still seemed a little like the same old Spike. "Let's just say this little test lasts until I'm sure I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Spike gasped. His knees buckled. "D-d-did you j-j-j-just sssay?" was all he managed to spit out before stammering himself into gibberish.

"Come on, Spike. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

"Uh, ah, I guess. Absolutely it's what I want. I just never thought I'd hear you say you wanted it. Of course you couched it in the conditional tense. But I did hear you say it." Spike took a deep breath, shook his head and gave a playful half-smile. "Bloody hell. Those crackpots always saying today is the first day of the rest of your life. Today they're right."

"I wouldn't go singing from the rooftops just yet Spike. I don't love you. I don't even trust you. There's only two ways this can turn out. Bliss or heartbreak. And the odds are stacked against bliss."

This only emboldened Spike. "The longer the odds, the bigger the payoff. And I've always been a sucker for an all-or-nothing bet. Triumph or tragedy. Perfect, cause with you I don't give a damn about the in-betweens. Well, here we are. Let's begin again. Begin the begin. REM of course, not Cole Porter."

When he was nervous, Spike had a tendency to speak in song lyrics. He realized he was babbling. Then he thought about what he just said: Cole Porter. That was it! Spike had an idea, a way to break through the awkwardness.

"Buffy, it just occurred to me that we've never danced. It would be something. Something simple. Something vertical. How bout it?"

Buffy suspected this was just a pretext Spike was using to try to get her in bed. Then again, the whole point of her visit was to give Spike the chance to be his same old scummy self and see if he could resist the temptation. "Guess we gotta start somewhere," she answered.

Spike quickly found and put on something he thought was appropriate for the occasion. Spike and Buffy approached one another awkwardly. Spike put his left hand in Buffy's right hand. He put his right hand on her waist. She put her left hand on his back. Slowly, fitfully, they began to dance.The Acacia crystal on the other side of the room cast a dim, shadowy light which was perfect for the occasion.

After all they had done together, this moment was highly contrived. It was the height of artificiality. But then again, that was the point. As Buffy said, they had to start somewhere. And they certainly couldn't start where they left off.

The song they were dancing to was the Gershwins' "Someone To Watch Over Me." The song was originally written about a woman who believed she needed a man to protect her, to keep her safe, to make her happy. Lyrics like "I'm a little babe who's lost in the wood, I know I could, always be good, to one who'd watch over me" certainly didn't apply to Buffy. But they might apply to Spike. Reverse the genders, and the song was entirely appropriate. As a human being, Spike was lost without Buffy. And he knew he needed her, that he was miserable without her.

Buffy looked up at Spike's face and managed a tentative but hopeful smile. Spike was a perfect gentleman. It was everything Buffy wanted. Was it also a lie?


	9. Chapter Nine: End Of The Beginning

Is Connor turning into Angel? Xander and Buffy are given good reasons to think so. Lucky for them, Connor's heading back where he belongs. Meanwhile, Spike's given a reason to be jealous of Xander. Anya and Xander share a tender moment. And just about every member of Spike's band wants to date one of his friends. Also,. Willow and Buffy stumble across a new potential villain.

Buffy had taken Dawn along on a Friday night patrol. They were standing over a fresh grave. They heard noises. The vampire was rising. Its right hand shot up from the soil. Dawn leaned down, and took the vampire's right hand in her right hand. She actually pulled him up to the surface. The vampire's feet were on solid ground. He wasn't sure what was happening. Dawn put her left hand on the outside of the vampire's right hand. Dawn shook his right hand with both of her hands, as if she was warmly greeting a business associate. "Welcome to your new life," she began. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

In Dawn's right hand was a wooden stake. As Dawn shook the vampire's hand, they were both holding this stake. Dawn thrust both her hands upward and towards the vampire's heart. Dawn staked the vampire with a stake he was holding in his own right hand.

Buffy was shocked. She had killed vampires in all sorts of ways. But never like this. Dawn noticed her sister's shock. "Sometimes it's fun to kill them with kindness," she told Buffy.

Dawn was being very brazen, almost fearless. Buffy thought she knew where Dawn got that from. "Steven teach you that move?"

"Course not. Steven's not into kindness. At least when it comes to vampires. With me, of course, he's way beyond kind. This afternoon, we were walking on the beach, and the sun set over the ocean. We stopped and stood there, and he held me, and we didn't have to say anything, like we could read each other's minds. I doesn't make sense, but at that moment it felt like everything was perfect, but it could only get better."

It was worse than Buffy had thought. Even at the height of her love for Angel, Buffy never deluded herself into thinking they had some sort of mind-meld. But she didn't know how to burst Dawn's bubble without seeming incredibly cruel. Fortunately, vampires intervened and ended the conversation. Buffy and Dawn heard growling and struggle nearby. They ran to the noise.

A vampire grabbed Willow and pushed her backwards. She stumbled and fell over a gravestone. Anya kicked the vampire in the chest and punched him in the face. She wasn't much of a puncher, but she compensated by wearing brass knuckles, which tenderized vampire flesh in a most unpleasant manner. The punch knocked the vampire into the wall of a mausoleum.

Willow got up, pulled out her stake and moved in for the kill. As she tried to thrust it home the vampire turned to its left and made a run for it. He dodged Willow's stake. But in his haste to flee the vampire didn't get a good look at the ground. He took two steps, tripped over a tombstone, and fell on his face.

Buffy arrived. She pulled the vampire back to his feet. She hit him in the face with a flying kick. She connected with a roundhouse kick. Then with a left hook. Then she staked him with her right hand.

"Willow? Anya? What are you doing out her?," Dawn asked.

Buffy turned and saw them. "So that's how this works?," Anya asked Buffy. "We soften em up, then you swoop in at the last second and bogart our kill?"

Buffy was very confused. "What's going on?," she asked them.

"Uh, hello, what does it look like? We're slaying," Willow told Buffy.

Buffy looked at the two of them, with their stakes and axes, and saw Anya's brass knuckles. "Has this become some sort of extreme sport? This is not meant to a fun, exciting diversion. It's life and death. What you're doing is dangerous and foolish. When people try to have fun slaying, bad things always happen to them."

"Actually, what's foolish and dangerous is helping a vampire get back on his feet," Anya told Buffy. "All I was going to do was reach down and stake him. Those flying kicks, that's overkill. And you're at your most vulnerable when you've left the ground. It's just common sense."

Anya giving Buffy condescending advice about slaying – now that was the last straw. "I see that your brain in not connected to your muscles or your mouth. I don't know which is going to kill you first: acting without thinking or talking without thinking. Cause you're doing a lot of both. But perhaps you do know a thing or two about fighting – from all those times you were knocked flat on your ass and sat there watching me save your life."

Right then a vampire came flying through the air and landed on its back near Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Anya. The four women saw Connor, Spike and Clem run towards the vampire. When the vampire stood up, Connor leaped up in the air and hit the vampire with a powerful left spin kick. This caused the vampire to spin around while still on its feet. Clem moved in and staked it while it was still spinning. The men and the women noticed each other.

"Connor what are you doing here?," Dawn asked. "Buffy told me you were going to the movies with Xander tonight."

"Xander told me you and Buffy were going shopping tonight."

Buffy was busted. But there were more important things to deal with. "Clem slays? What, is everybody doing it?," an exasperated Buffy asked.

Spike tried to explain. "Look, Clem has a compulsion."

"It's true, I'm addicted," Clem added.

"You're addicted to killing vampires?," Buffy yelled. "I guess they really do have an addiction for everything these days. Wait a second. How can anyone be addicted to killing vampires? That's just lunacy!"

Spike tried to finish explaining. "No pet, it's adrenaline. The whole thrill of the hunt. Clem did it once, and now he's hooked. He knows it's dangerous. He knows he'll get himself killed. But he can't stop himself. So I figure it's best if he's supervised when he's getting his fix. Steven came by, so having him around made it all the more safe."

"Safe! How can giving vampires the chance to kill you ever be safe?," Buffy wondered.

"Really, they're not so tough," Willow said.

"Fine. Guess you don't need me no more on the Hellmouth," Buffy declared. "I'll go someplace where vampires are feared instead of being hunted for sport."

"Buffy, that's not what I meant," Willow responded. "I mean, run-of-the-mill vampires aren't so tough, if you've got the right weapons and you're not scared of them and you have people backing you up. But then there are those superstar vampires."

"The Big Bads," Spike added.

"Yes, exactly, like Spike once was," Willow continued. "And we need you to protect us from them."

"Or from the big, huge scary demons who come by fairly regularly," Dawn added.

"And the rest of the time you take me for granted,'' Buffy cynically concluded.

"No, no, we could never take you for granted," Willow responded.

"Just because we're not completely helpless doesn't mean we don't appreciated all you do for us," Anya concurred. "You shouldn't be upset that we're killing vampires. You inspired us to take on the vampires. What we're doing, it's an homage to you."

"I realize now that when I came to this town I should have come with a warning: don't try this yourself. But Slayers don't come with warnings. It's just assumed that no ordinary human being would be stupid enough to try to play Slayer in their free time. Did it ever occur to you that when you're out here one night you'll run into one of those Big Bads you can't defend yourselves against and you'll be dead before I can come to the rescue?"

Everyone felt a bit guilty, like children being lectured to by a parent after they've done something immature. "But that's why we went out with Steven," Spike offered as a defense. "I mean, he's not a Slayer, but he's close." Connor kind of took offense at this and looked disapprovingly at Spike. He almost saw it as an insult.

"Okay, there's a Steven exception," Buffy conceded. Then she realized who was missing from this scene. "At least Xander's not out here. Good to know one of my friends has some common sense."

"Xander, oh no!," Willow exclaimed as she looked at her watch. "I was supposed to meet him at the Bronze half an hour ago!"

"I'll drive you there," Anya said. "There's always a chance Sterling's there."

"Sterling? Who's Sterling?," Buffy wondered.

"My drummer. And Anya's new beau," Spike told Buffy. This reminded Spike of something. "By the way Buffy, are we still on for tomorrow night?"

"Sure are. Meet you at six," Buffy answered.

"You're dating Spike?," a stunned Dawn asked.

Anya and Willow arrived at the Bronze. "Xander, I'm so sorry I'm late," Willow ran up and told him.

"Not to worry. I kind of figured you were out with your girl- . . . oh, there's Anya. With you. You came here with Anya?"

"We were doing a little TGIF staking and kind of lost track of time," Anya explained.

"Used to be I was what brought you two together. No I've been replaced by bloodsucking fiends," Xander joked about this new friendship.

"Want to introduce me to the gang?," a voice said behind Willow. She turned around and it was Zooey. She was appropriately casual, in a white Babes in Toyland t-shirt and black pants. Her black braids had grown a bit longer.

"Zooey! What a surprise. A pleasant surprise, of course," a slightly flustered Willow began, realizing her worlds were suddenly merging. Anya, Xander, this is my good friend Zooey."

"So this is the Xander," Zooey began.

"The Xander?," Xander asked. "When did I become a the?"

"You are Willow's one and only Xander, aren't you?," Zooey asked.

"So far as I know, at least in this dimension," Xander joked.

"Willow said you were funny. A bit bulkier than I imagined."

"He has excessively large upper arms," Anya added out of nowhere.

"You work out?," Zooey asked.

"Not really. The only heavy things I lift are some steel I-beams at work. I do construction."

"A man who works with his hands," Zooey commented. "Yes, it's perfect. It makes so much sense."

"What makes sense?," a somewhat puzzled Willow asked Zooey.

"You two," Zooey answered. "You and Xander, as best buds. He's the perfect yang to your yin."

"I'm yang?," Xander asked. "First I was a the.' Now I'm a yang.'"

Zooey explained the story behind this overused cliche. "Yin and Yang grew up apart. They were exact opposites. Whatever Yin was great at, Yang was lousy at. Whatever Yang raged in, Yin sucked at. One day they meet. They realize they complement each other perfectly. Apart, they were weak. Together, they could do anything."

"You are amazing," Xander began. "You met me 15 seconds ago, and already, whoa. Willow, care to second my wowing?"

"Could you carve that in stone or something?," Willow half-jokingly asked. "Cause I feel like I've been immortalized, and I'm still very much a mortal."

"I work at a bookstore, so picking up useless knowledge is something of an occupational hazard. I didn't think everyone would be so shocked. I mean, the opposites thing. It's obvious, right Anya?"

"Yes, of course. It's always been obvious to everybody. But you made the obvious so frighteningly poetic. You've taken two ordinary people and turned them into storybook characters."

Zooey realize this. "Yikes, it did make them a bit larger-than-life. Sorry bout that."

"No, don't be sorry," Xander interjected. "I've always wanted the chance to be larger-than-life."

"You're in Spike's band. Have you seen Sterling around?" Anya asked Zooey.

"Who's Sterling?," Xander asked no one in particular.

"Oh yeah, you're Sterling's Anya," Zooey realized.

"Who's Sterling?," Xander asked no one in particular once again.

Zooey continued. "I saw him here a few minutes ago. He was actually looking for you. I think he's up on the balcony."

Anya walked to the stairs. "Who's Sterling?," Xander asked Anya as she walked by him.

"My boyfriend silly," Anya told Xander, as if she was telling him something he should have already figured out from the context of the conversation.

The dj started playing Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' Philly Soul classic "The Love I Lost." "Who wants to dance with me?," Zooey asked no one in particular. She knew Willow might be uncomfortable about dancing with her, given her fears of becoming more than just Zooey's friend. So that left only one option. "Hey Xander, let's dance." Xander looked a bit shocked but went along. Saying no to Willow's new friend would have been rude. And since when did Xander reject a offer to dance with an attractive woman?

Anya spotted Sterling at the edge of the balcony. "If you wanted to see me, you could have always called," Anya told him.

"I thought about that. I just didn't want to seem too desperate."

"Spending all night scanning the room for my presence, you didn't think that would seem a tad desperate?"

"I wasn't gonna wait all night. Just maybe an hour, tops. Besides, if I saw you, I was going to surprise you, act like I just arrived. But I'm beginning to suspect that you're a hard woman to fool."

"Men can fool me. They just always live to regret it."

"Thanks for the heads up. That's what's great about you – you get to the point. You're blunt. Beautifully, brilliantly blunt. Now I'll get to the point. This place is dead tonight. Let's go somewhere more exciting. There's a great club south of here, in La Mesa. I know the guy who runs it. They're having a big thing tonight. Tough to get into if you don't know the right people, which I do. Course, I have no interest in going if you don't go with me."

"La Mesa? You want to take me to Mexico?," Anya asked. She wasn't crazy about border crossings, what with lacking a passport and all. Technically, she was an illegal alien.

Sterling laughed. "No. La Mesa's in California. Just east of San Diego, off of Route 8. It's not that far from here at all."

"Oh, of course. That La Mesa," Anya said as if she knew the place. "I'd love to go there with you tonight."

"Anya, call me crazy, but I get the sense you haven't gotten out of Sunnydale much, have you?"

"It's where my friends are," she offered defensively.

"That's what's confusing me," Sterling explained. "I know you're not some small town girl who's never been anywhere. You strike me as someone who's been around the world."

"I confess, I've been to Europe," Anya said with evasive modesty.

"Thing is, I've lived in little, middle-of-nowhere towns like this all my life. There are two people in towns like Sunnydale. Those who belong. And those who get out. You don't belong here. Certainly not for the rest of your life. You need more than a town like Sunnydale can offer."

Anya knew the perfect response. "Problem is, if I left here to see the world, I wouldn't see you."

Sterling was speechless. He decided to end the conversation before he said anything which would have ruined this wonderful moment. The two of them left.

The song ended and Xander and Zooey stopped dancing. They walked back to Willow. "See, brought him back in one piece," Zooey joked to Willow. "I'm gonna go get a drink. Be right back."

"I really think your new friend's great," Xander said to Willow. "Is she dating anyone?"

Willow playfully flicked Xander in the stomach with the back of her right hand. It was a very forceful flick which hit him right in the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him.

Xander grabbed his stomach and gasped. "It was a joke. Honestly, I was just joking," Xander managed to spit out as he struggled for breath. Willow didn't know who she was jealous of. Was she jealous of Xander, because it kinda seemed like Zooey was hitting on him? Or was she jealous of Zooey, because Xander was flirting with her? Or was she actually jealous of both of them? Of course that's irrational. But jealousy is often irrational.

When Zooey came back the tension decreased. The three of them got along famously. Xander and Willow told funny childhood stories. The atmosphere turned friendly. The presence of Xander actually neutralized the sexual tension which was palpable whenever Willow and Zooey were together. It was also a chance for Willow and Xander to reminisce without mentioning vampires or demons or supernatural phenomena of any kind. And it was a chance for Zooey to hang out with friends who weren't musicians or part of that "scene" in any way. So it was a refreshing change of pace for all involved.

Willow didn't realize that it was the presence of Xander which had cooled the heat between her and Zooey. She just figured they had moved past that awkward stage. When Xander was about to leave, Willow was going to go with him since Anya was her ride and Anya was gone. Before she left, Zooey asked her a question.

"If you don't have a problem getting up early on Saturdays, we could do brunch tomorrow, say 11? So Will, willya?"

"Actually, I have a lab I have to make up at 8 am. I won't get out until after 11. How bout lunch at noon?"

"Lunch it is. You know that place called Kelly's, on Main Street near where I live?"

"Yeah, I've passed it. Meet you there tomorrow."

When Willow got home, she checked her email. Her lab instructor had written her: "Willow, I'll be in the lab doing some of my own work between 1 and 4 tomorrow afternoon. So if you don't want to get up at an unholy hour for a Saturday, you can come by and make up your lab work in the afternoon."

This was good news. Willow called Zooey and left a message on her answering machine: "Hi Zooey. It's me, Willow. The lab got moved to the afternoon, so I can meet you for brunch at 11. See you then. Bye."

Saturday morning, Buffy was on the phone. "We were naive to think we could keep this a secret for very long."

"I guess it was too obvious for them not to notice," Xander answered.

"Especially when you didn't keep up your end of the bargain," Buffy said.

"My fault! How is this my fault?," Xander wondered.

"You let Steven go out alone at night. Naturally, he'll patrol. So there was a good chance he'd find Dawn and me patrolling."

"Yes, except you told me you were taking Dawn shopping."

"Xander, that was just the cover story."

"Well, that was the only story you told me. If you let me in on the truth, I would have acted accordingly."

Buffy saw this. "You're right. We both screwed up. The whole thing was childish to begin with. Dawn and Steven lie to us in order to see each other. So we lie in order to keep them apart."

Xander saw a better way. "The thing is, we don't want to keep them apart. I mean, they're good kids."

"Exactly," Buffy agreed. "I'm so glad Dawn has a boyfriend. I just worry about her. I don't like it when I don't know where she is."

Xander had an idea. "What you want is supervision. How about this afternoon I take Steven and Dawn to the mall for some Christmas shopping, my treat, of course. And then I drop them off at the Magic Box. They can hang out with you. Do some training, whatever."

"Xander, that's perfect. And it'll be good for me to spend some quality time with Steven."

Willow had brunch with Zooey. She then took a look at Zooey's third floor attic apartment, which was just down the street from the restaurant.

"I know, it's a dump," Zooey apologized. "But it's a roof over my head. Or, if I'm not careful where I walk, a roof into my head."

"No, it's charming, I like it," Willow said as she sat down on Zooey's couch.

Zooey sat down to the left of Willow. "I just wanted to say that I had a great time last night, hanging out with you and Xander."

"Yeah, last night was good," Willow concurred. "My newest friend, meeting my oldest friend. It's nice to know we can have fun together. I'm happy that you're becoming a part of my world."

"Your world seems like a cool world to be part of," Zooey commented.

Willow had a confession to make. "Other times, with you, I've been a little nervous and jumpy. Kind of wound too tight. Now, the jitters are gone. I can be relaxed around you. This is good."

Zooey agreed. "It's a lot more comfortable when we're not sitting on pins and needles all the time." There was a pause. Then Zooey said "I'm gonna get something to drink. You want anything?"

Willow's head was facing up. She was looking at poster of a Kandinsky painting which was on the inward slanting wall above her head. "No thanks," Willow answered. Willow then reached up her left hand and put it down over to her left. She thought Zooey had already gotten up from the couch. But instead her hand landed on Zooey's right knee.

A moment of great awkwardness followed. Willow didn't mean to do this. But she didn't remove her hand either. Perhaps this was a meaningless friendly touch, the sort she had with Xander all the time.

Zooey was also confused. She knew Willow wanted her only as a friend. But if she suddenly moved away at this moment it might embarrass Willow. So Zooey put her right hand on top of Willow's left hand, with the idea of lifting Willow's hand off her leg and ending the awkward moment in a discreet manner.

Zooey lifted Willow's hand off her knee. Willow turned her hand upwards, so their palms were facing. Then Willow interlocked her fingers with Zooey's. Willow's left hand, holding Zooey's right hand, gently fell back onto Zooey's right leg.

Zooey slowly moved her head rightward towards Willow's. Willow slowly moved hers leftward towards Zooey's. They kissed. Willow put her right hand on the back of Zooey's neck. Zooey put her left hand in Willow's hair. About five seconds later they quickly moved apart.

They were both startled. Zooey stood up. "I'm sorry. I know this looks bad, like I brought you up here to take advantage of you, but that's not what I had in mind."

Willow also stood up. "No, no, it's my fault. I did this. I didn't mean to, it just happened."

"You're wrong. It's my fault," Zooey confessed. "The truth is, for me, this just friends' thing is a sham. I love spending time with you. And I love being your friend. But part of me is always wanting something more. They way I feel about you, I've never felt that way about another woman. But I know you have, and I know that's why this can't be what I want it to be."

"Well, I haven't been completely faithful to the just friends' policy myself," Willow admitted. "I've been a little deficient in the self-control department. If I hadn't kept leading you on with the touching and the holding and caressing and all, there wouldn't be a problem." Willow looked at her watch. It was almost time for her lab. She turned to go.

"Willow, wait," Zooey pleaded. "We can't end it like this. I want to be a part of your life."

Willow was a bit surprised. "End it! Oh no. I'm just leaving because I have something to go to at this minute. I'll call you. We'll hang out. This isn't the end of anything. We're friends. We're friends who happen to be physically attracted to one another. It's not like this is the first time that has ever happened."

Dawn and Connor walked into the mall while Xander looked for a parking space. They were browsing around in a drug store. Connor grabbed two candy bars and started walking out. Dawn grabbed him a few feet before he left the store.

"Steven what are you doing?"

"Getting something to eat. I'm hungry."

"But you can't just take those without paying?"

"I can't?"

No, of course not. Put those back."

Connor did what Dawn told him to do. They both walked out of the store empty-handed. "Steven. Have you done this before?"

"Done what?"

"Taking stuff without paying for it."

"Only when I don't need to pay to get it."

"What do you mean need to pay?"

Steven pointed to the restaurants in the food court. "If something's yours, you guard it. You don't leave it out for others to take. Those places, you pay and then you get your hands on the food. You have to pay. But why should I pay for something I can easily take?"

"Cause it's stealing," Dawn answered.

"That's like saying it's stealing to drink water from a water fountain."

"So this in routine to you? Taking stuff without paying for it?"

"Before I lived with Xander, I did it all the time. No one seemed to mind. I was just foraging."

"No one seemed to mind because you never got caught. But they catch you, you'll get in trouble."

"Oh, that's a bad thing. Wouldn't want trouble."

"Don't worry about it. Actually, I used to take things from stores myself, when I was younger."

"Really!," Connor exclaimed. "We really do have a lot in common." Dawn never imagined her shoplifting streak would ever have a silver lining. But here it was.

Xander entered the mall and met up with them. It was past lunchtime, and they were all hungry, so they stopped by the food court for something to eat.

Dawn was eating a piece of chocolate cake. "How is it?," Connor asked.

"It's good. You want a bite?"

"No thanks. That's okay."

"You should try it. This fudge frosting is really rich." Dawn swept up a dollop of frosting on her right index finger and put it in Connor's mouth. He liked the finger food.

Xander was worried. Dawn had found a way to eroticize Connor's sweet tooth. This could only mean trouble.

After lunch they went to a clothing store where Dawn was trying to dress Connor. Not physically, of course. She was just trying to pick out some nice clothes for him, as an early Christmas present. She found something she really liked. Connor went into the dressing room to try it on.

"I think I picked out something perfect for Steven," Dawn told Xander as they waited for Connor to emerge from the dressing room. "It's nice looking, but not too fancy. Kinda casual. Just right for him."

Connor emerged. "What do you think? Is this me?" Connor asked Dawn and Xander. He was wearing a shiny black silk button-down shirt and black leather pants.

Xander knew who this was. This wasn't Connor. This was Angel. He gasped and jumped back, and put his hands over his mouth in horror. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Xander, is something wrong?," Connor innocently asked.

Dawn tried to explain. "Okay Xander, I know it's a different look for him, but come on, you gotta admit, he looks great. And you said yourself he needed some more adult-looking clothes." But this was not the adult Xander wanted Connor to look like.

Xander was still stunned speechless. Dawn tried to allay his doubts. "Okay, I know, this isn't everyday wear. It's more like something special to wear every now and then at night, when we go out. Like for going to the Bronze."

Yes, I agree, Xander thought. These clothes are not meant to see the light of day. But that was precisely the problem.

"Is there something odd about the way I look?," Connor asked Dawn in reference to Xander's silent look of horror. "These clothes feel a little odd. Maybe they don't look right on me."

"They look incredible on you," Dawn replied. Then she whispered in Connor's ear. "You look really hot. Don't worry about Xander. He's old. He has trouble accepting new things." Connor no longer felt so ridiculous in his new threads. Dawny liked, so Connor liked.

Xander finally tried to articulate his objections to this apparel. "I don't think Steven is the type of guy who wears leather pants," he said to Dawn. "People may get the wrong idea about him. They make think he's, you know, flamboyant."

Dawn didn't completely get Xander's allusion. "What does that mean? What idea would they get?"

Xander didn't want to spell it out. Besides, it was a specious reason. All the men Xander had ever seen in leather pants were straight. But of course he couldn't divulge the real reason he loathed these clothes. So he came up with a more pragmatic objection.

Xander went over to Connor and looked at the price tags on the clothes. "You expect me to pay $80 for a single shirt and $150 for one pair a pants! That's obscene! I'm not made of money, you know. You want to get these for Steven, fine. But I'm not paying for them."

At that moment Dawn wished she hadn't given up shoplifting. But she accepted Xander's decision. She had no choice. Dawn found something less expensive and less provocative for Xander to buy for Connor.

Buffy was at the Magic Shop talking with Anya. "Willow tells me you've found a new guy."

"Oh yes, Sterling. He's a rather magnificent specimen. And he's actually got a brain under all that lustrous, flowing hair. I was just looking for a hunk, and instead I got an actual person. A very welcome bonus indeed."

"How did you to meet?," Buffy asked. After all, Anya traveled within a small circle of friends.

"He's the drummer in Spike's band. Spike told me Sterling wanted to meet me."

"He brought you two together. How bout that. Spike's actually playing a constructive role in your love life," Buffy observed.

Anya got the reference. "That reminds me, Buffy. We don't have much in common. But we both have Spike. I mean, we've both had Spike." Buffy looked nervous. "Look, I'm sorry you had to see that. How was I to know about you two? Or that what happened in my store was being broadcast? I didn't know I was being used to try to hurt you. Granted, I was using Spike to hurt Xander, but let's face it he deserved it."

Anya got to the point. "The odd thing was, I was disappointed – with Spike. Don't get me wrong. He's very firm and tight. And yummy, definitely yummy. It was good, I guess. But not up to my expectations. He wasn't even close to as good as Xander. Spike just didn't make me feel the earth move."

Buffy never wanted to have this conversation. Ever. And now she found herself asking Anya something she'd never thought she'd utter. "Xander made you feel the earth move?"

"Once or twice I think there may have been some actual seismic activity. We are on a major fault line. But the rest of the time I know that it wasn't two tectonic plates rubbing together. It was"

Buffy mercifully cut Anya off. "Let me get this straight. Spike didn't live up to your standards."

"He didn't live up to Xander," Anya clarified.

"Well, that's very interesting. That's the thing about talking to you Anya. Every time I see you, I have no idea what you'll tell me. No idea at all." Buffy left. She went for a little walk. She never, ever wanted to think about Xander in that way. But Anya's appraisal of him was so shocking Buffy couldn't get it out of her head. Alexander Harris, love machine?

Willow was making up a biology lab she missed the afternoon after the night the Camillus rose. That was when she and Anya went on a slaying all-nighter. When she came home that morning, she fell into bed and slept through her lab.

Patrick Gugan, her lab instructor, was short and wiry, with curly brown-blonde hair and green eyes. He definitely looked nerdy. But he looked cuter than most nerds. He had a boyish face which made him appear much younger than 28. But his perpetual irregular stubble, the darkness under his eyes, and his pale, translucent skin gave away the fact that he had spent years in the lab and the library. Graduate school has a way of aging a man, of turning him into someone you would never mistake for a carefree undergrad.

"Thanks for coming in on a Saturday afternoon so I could make up the lab," Willow told Patrick. "I feel kind of guilty for taking up your time."

"Don't," Gugan told her. "I was coming in anyway. It's a good time to do research. Everyone's gone, so I don't have to wait to use the really good equipment."

"You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?," Willow asked.

"Course not. I'm a post-doc, so I have no life," Gugan answered jokingly yet truthfully. "So how is the RFLP coming along?"

"Slowly," Willow answered.

"It's always slow. Except when it's broken. These experiments you do for class, they're very elementary. Not very challenging. Certainly not for someone with your intellectual curiosity. During labs, I see you waiting for the centrifuge to finish and then injecting the sample into the mold for the umpteenth time, and it looks like you're thinking Bored Now.'"

"I don't think that," Willow quickly answered. Those words were rather haunting.

"I don't mean those exact words," Gugan clarified. "I'm sure you think in grammatically-correct complete sentences. You could never be a scientist. You speak the language far too well."

"Thanks, I guess," Willow said.

"I did mean it as a compliment. This is your first college bio course, right?"

"Yes," Willow answered.

"And yet you have a better mind for this stuff than most of the seniors who major in this department. This intro stuff is beneath you. When you're finished, I should show you some of the stuff I'm working on. Much more interesting than this beginner's drudgery."

Willow liked being appreciated. She knew she was smart, though she thought Gugan vastly overrated her intelligence. He seemed to think she was some sort of genius.

But he was correct about her curiosity. When Willow was done, she went with Gugan into an adjacent room where he showed her some stuff on his computer – models of genomes and protein folding.

"You good with computers?," Gugan asked Willow.

"Kind of, I guess," she demurely answered.

"You ever write code?"

"I've done a little programming."

"Genes are like code. Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine, they're our ones and zeros. They make us work. When they're's a bug in the code, they make us not work. MoBio is debugging living things."

Willow found this a bit disturbing. "What, you're in this to build better people? Home sapiens, version 2.0?"

"That would be programming. I'm only debugging." He clicked his mouse to show a picture of cells under a microscope. "These are thousands of cells of healthy human flesh. In one of these cells, a few genes – a few lines of code on chromosome 11, are changed." He clicked his mouse and typed a few times.

"Now this cell has a bug. It's a tumor cell." He typed a few more keys. "The tumor cell multiplies and takes over the healthy cells. It's like a demon that eats a person up from the inside. And all cause a few lines of code weren't replicated properly. Switch a few molecules of nucleic acid in a single cell, and it can destroy the body. It's all in the code."

Then he finished making his point. "Question is, how do you kill the demon? All we can do now is poison the person and hope the poison kills the demon before it kills the person. The logical thing would be to attack only the demon, right? And what makes a cell a demon? Its code. Debug the code, save the person."

"So do you specialize in onca genes?," Willow asked Gugan. But before he could answer he walked through a metal door into another room. Willow heard animal screams and roars. She heard what sounded like large paws banging against walls. These weren't human noises. And they weren't the noises of any animal which should be in a molecular biology lab. Willow panicked and left.

Gugan came out of the room. There was a six inch-long scratch on his left forearm which was bleeding. "Willow? Willow where'd you go?," he asked. He looked into the main lab. Her backpack was gone. She was gone.

Buffy was back at the Magic Shop to meet Xander, so he could "hand off" Dawn and Connor. She put out of her mind what Anya had said, proof that the gift of human curiosity can also be a curse. Xander walked in. Dawn and Connor dashed by her into the training room without even saying hello.

"How did shopping go?," Buffy asked Xander.

"You know how teenagers are. Take them shopping, and you spend most of your time telling them that you can't buy them stuff."

Buffy walked up to him, gazing oddly into his eyes. "I guess you were man enough to keep them in line."

"Well, it's pretty easy to say the buck stops here' when you're the one holding all the bucks."

Buffy put her right hand on the side of Xander's left shoulder. He looked at it, confused. There was something odd about her eyes. Something unnatural, he thought.

"That's why I trust you. You're responsible. You've grown, matured. I was so used to seeing you as a boy that I didn't notice when you became a man."

Xander was quite wigged by now. "Yes Buffy, we've all grown up, gotten jobs, pay bills. It happens to everybody." He quickly walked away and approached Anya near the back of the room.

"Anya, have there been any spells cast recently?"

"Far as I know, none that should concern us. Why?"

"Buffy's acting a little, different. A tad, unusual, around me. At least she was a minute ago."

"Oh, that's probably because I told her you were better in bed than Spike."

The clang of metal boxes hitting the floor could be heard from the supply room. "Bollocks!!!," Spike screamed out from the supply room. He burst into the main room of the store and confronted Anya.

"What the bleeding hell did I just hear?"

"Xander was better than you," Anya calmly replied. Xander was beginning to really enjoy this moment. He stood nearby, a big grin lighting up his face.

"You're joking. You're humoring Harris, right?"

"Actually I told Buffy that Xander was better than you."

Spike looked down the room to see Buffy. She seemed kind of embarrassed. "I didn't ask. I swear! " she blurted out in her defense."

Spike looked at Anya. He realized she meant what she said. "That one time, you can't use that as a benchmark for making judgements. Both of us were drunk. Very, very drunk. No one's ever at their best when they're in that state."

Spike glanced over at Xander. He had never seen him so smug. "This is beyond bloody ridiculous! Arrghh!" And then he stormed outside.

Xander slowly walked out of the store. "This is a good day. This is a very good day," he said as he made his way to the door.

Buffy felt guilty for the little upside-down sketch she had just witnessed. She went out to talk to Spike. He was pacing angrily up and down the sidewalk. He saw her.

"Xander just got in his car. Aren't you gonna go flag down love pump Harris?"

Buffy started laughing. "Oh, you think this is funny?," Spike yelled.

"Yes, it's very funny. If you think about it. Don Juan Xander? It's hilarious."

"Anya seemed to take it seriously," Spike replied.

"That's the point. That's why I was so shocked. The very idea that Xander can do what you can do. Last year, I hated you. I hated what you were. I hated myself for being with you. Given all the reasons I had to avoid you, there must have been something that made me come back again and again."

"Is this a compliment?," Spike asked sarcastically.

"It's the truth. It's also the past. It's behind us. And honestly, there is no reason for you to be jealous of Xander."

"Jealous of Xander! What the bloody? Oh, I get it. You're right. This whole thing is funny. Me! Jealous of Xander? In what Bizarro world?"

Spike realized the joke wasn't on him. It was on Xander. Of course, Xander didn't know this. So everyone was happy. Buffy and Spike walked back into the Magic Shop and into the training room.

Connor and Dawn had already been in there a few minutes. Nothing Buffy feared had occurred. They were just playing with two swords, mock fencing. Kid's stuff.

Connor and Dawn put the "toys" away. There was something on Connor's mind. "Spike, last night you said I was almost as good as Buffy. You think she's better than me?"

Spike was being put on the spot, in front of both Buffy and Connor. He tried to be evasive. "All I meant was Clem and I were safe with you around. You're tremendous, Steven. The next best thing to a Slayer."

"Then next best?," Connor angrily asked. "Who chose her?"

Buffy couldn't resist the invitation. "Who didn't choose me? The Council, the Fates, God. The prophecies. It's all spelled out. Stronger than any vampire. Certainly stronger than any human."

"Let's see about that," Connor declared.

Buffy laughed. "Are you trying to call me out? Do you actually want to fight me?"

"You afraid?, Connor taunted."

Buffy laughed again. "Yes, I am afraid. Afraid that I'll hurt you."

"So you think you can hurt me?"

"That's kind of what happens to people who attack me."

"Care to find out what happens to people who attack me?," Connor boasted.

Buffy tried the mold the taunts into something constructive. "Don't get me wrong Steven. You're great. But not as great as you think. There's a lot I want to teach you. And if you want to learn, you've come to the right place. First thing you'll learn is that arrogance can be very painful."

Dawn was getting worried. "Buffy, you are not beating up my boyfriend."

This only further incensed Connor. "You think she's better than me?"

"Steven, this is nuts. This is crazy. It doesn't matter who's better," Dawn tried to explain.

"Looks like I have something to prove to all of you," a rather miffed Connor declared.

Spike tried to find a way to control this battle of the alpha-slayers. "This is good. You'll test yourselves. The best training with the best. Let's just get out the gloves and put on some headgear and this will be very"

As Spike was speaking Connor stood in front of Buffy and said "just try to hit me." Before Spike could finish Buffy threw a right jab at Connor's nose. He ducked. She couldn't hit him, he thought. But Buffy followed with a quick left uppercut that caught Connor in the chin as he lowered his head. The jab was a decoy. She followed up with a right hook which slammed into Connor's left cheek.

Connor hit Buffy in the stomach. The he threw a powerful but wild left hook which hit ear in the right ear. This made Buffy even angrier. She threw a left hook of her own. Connor grabbed Buffy's left fist in his right hand. Then Buffy kicked Connor in the mouth. He responded by kicking Buffy in the side of the head. After this initial flurry each of them backed up a few feet and they sized each other up.

"Okay we're way beyond the Queensbury rules here," Spike realized. Clearly this was not sparring. This looked like a fight to the death.

Dawn grabbed Spike's arm. "Spike we have to stop this!"

Spike disagreed. "We can't keep these two apart forever. If we stop them here, they're just gonna get it on somewhere else." Spike and Dawn didn't realize it, but these words could also apply to Dawn and Connor.

Anya came in to see what all the noise was. "Oooh, a fight!," she excitedly announced.

Buffy tried a high kick. Connor ducked. He tried to sweep Buffy's legs out form under her. She jumped in the air and kicked Connor in the side of the head. He blocked her follow-up kick. Connor lunged at Buffy and tried to take her to the ground. Buffy did a round off and flipped in the air. Connor missed her completely. She landed behind him. She kicked him in the spine then kicked him in the back of the legs. Connor fell on his back. He shot his legs up in the air and kicked Buffy, knocking her back. Then he did a backwards hand spring and returned to his feet.

By now both suspected they had started something they could neither stop nor finish. Connor pulled out his tricks. He leaped at Buffy from ten feet away and tried the kick her in the chest. When she blocked the kick with both her hands, he punched her twice in the face while he was still in midair. When he landed Buffy grabbed him and tossed him over her shoulder.

Connor rose to his knees. Buffy kicked at him with her left foot. He grabbed it. Then she spun around and kicked him in the head with her right foot. Connor got to his feet. His feet were far apart, his knees bent, His head and back leaning forward. Buffy thought he looked like a wounded animal. She was ready to finish this little demonstration of her dominance.

Connor lunged at Buffy and grabbed her arms. She threw him against the wall. She moved in and threw a right cross. Connor dodged the blow, and Buffy's fist slammed into the wall with the resonant thud of a large hammer. She threw a left hook. Connor grabbed her left arm and spun Buffy 180 degrees. Connor grabbed her from behind. She couldn't free herself from his grasp.

"Balance is everything, Buffy. Your ex-boyfriend taught me that." Buffy kicked her left leg up and over her shoulder and hit Connor in the face. The blow forced him to let go. He could deal with Slayer strength. But he had forgotten about Slayer flexibility.

Buffy couldn't believe that Connor would dare bring Angel into this. Now she was going to make him pay. She tried to kick him. He blocked it. She tried a punch. He grabbed both her arms. She did a backwards flip kick. At the last instant, Connor pulled his head back so that Buffy's feet missed by millimeters.

Buffy prepared to attack yet again. Connor stood still, his feet planted as if they were roots. Buffy leaped at him with a flying kick to the chest. If he didn't get out of the way, this would knock him back a few feet for sure. But it didn't. Buffy then launched a right jab, which Connor blocked. She tried a spinning left roundhouse kick. Connor dodged it. Frustrated, Buffy let loose a flurry of punches and chops, all of which Connor blocked. Then he grabbed Buffy by the shoulders and pushed her back five feet.

Connor started laughing and smirking at Buffy. "You can't do it. You can't beat me," he told her. She took two steps forward and kicked Connor in the groin. He doubled over in pain. Buffy turned around and stalked out of the room as Dawn ran over to Connor and yelled "Buffy! What the hell was that!"

History repeating itself. That's what it was. Buffy's fight with Connor ended exactly as her first fight with Angelus – the one in the shopping mall – had ended.

Spike went after Buffy. Anya, with no one to talk to, went back to the counter. She thought it had been a thrilling fight. Like the girl from "Crouching Tiger" against the guy from "The Matrix."

Spike caught up to Buffy on the street. "I hope you're happy. You've created a monster," Buffy said to him.

"What are you talking about?"

"He's anticipating. When I met him, he was just reacting. Anticipating, that's how you told me you killed Slayers. Your power's gone, so you fight vicariously through Steven."

"That's what you think? That I want Steven to achieve all the dreams I couldn't? I couldn't beat you up, so I want Steven to beat you up, even though I love you. Yes, that makes bloody awful good sense."

"I mean you want to make him better. And he's getting better. He's improving every day. I'm stagnating. He hasn't peaked, and I'm already over the hill."

"The veteran's jealous of the rookie. That's fool's talk. What you did back there was practice, and practice means nothing. You hold back in practice. It's nothing like the real thing. Fighters only try when it's to-the-death. And I hope that's not what was going on back there. It wasn't, right?"

"Please, Spike."

"See, it doesn't matter. A mere exhibition. What counts is when you're fighting some Big Bad. Steven's never done that. He hasn't faced what you've faced. He great at killing big dumb beasts. But he doesn't know how to fight a baddie who can rub two brain cells together.

"You should have seen him when he met Drusilla. He ran up to Dru, figured he'd overpower her, like all the other vamps. She threw him around like a rag doll. Could have killed him if she wanted."

"She threw him around?," a shocked Buffy asked.

"He had no idea what he was up against. Fighting's not just strength and speed and all that physical stuff. All Slayers have that. Kendra did. Faith does. So why are you better than them?"

"Better fashion sense?," Buffy joked.

"True. But you know the reason. You're original. You're clever. You're resourceful. You know many ways to fight. Steven knows one. Rush, attack, kill. If he's up against something that he can take down in a couple of minutes, he's in trouble. He's helpless against a baddie who strategizes. He doesn't do strategy. He needs someone to do that for him, someone to make sure he doesn't rush headlong into a trap. You do strategy. You've check-mated the best of them, again and again."

Buffy thought about this. "For all his powers, Steven does have to get rescued a lot. Still, I am disappointed I couldn't put him in his place."

"Is this a new rule of yours?," Spike asked. "Dawn can only date boys her big sister can beat up?"

"Actually, the rule is I can only date boys I can beat up. See you at six."

Buffy walked away. Spike was a good sport about the insult. After all, it meant that when it came to Buffy, there were rewards for losing. He walked off to practice with his band.

After about a minute Connor felt fully recovered from Buffy's low blow. He slipped out the back door with Dawn.

"Steven, why did you pick a fight with my sister?," a somewhat peeved Dawn asked.

"I was curious," he answered.

"Curious to see if you could hurt the only family I have?"

"She's supposed to be the best. I wanted to see how good I was. I wasn't trying to hurt her. It was training. I was just a game."

"Games are supposed to be fun. That was fun for you?"

"Yes, kind of. It was thrilling."

"Great! I'm dating the president of Fight Club. Let me look at you." She looked at his face. It looked very good, considering the punches and kicks it had absorbed. She lightly touched a small bruise above his left eyebrow and kissed it.

"Are you going to kiss me everywhere Buffy hit me?," Connor asked with a sly smile.

Dawn slugged Connor in the stomach. She knew where everywhere' was.

Connor doubled over. He was completely unprepared for the punch, and she really knocked the wind out of him. "I . . . was . . . joking" he gasped.

"I know," Dawn replied. "It was a lame joke." She noticed Connor was still bent over in pain. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm glad I had a very light lunch." This was a much subtler and wittier erotic joke on Connor's part.

"How bout we make a deal," Dawn began. "You don't hit my sister, and I won't hit you."

Connor regained his breath and stood up. "I like that deal," he told her. Dawn put her right arm around his shoulders and kissed him on his left cheek. They walked out of the alley and towards to street. Buffy appeared. She had been looking for them.

"There you are. You two can hang out at the house. I'll drive you there."

Connor was a bit nervous to see Buffy. A few minutes ago they had be trying to knock each other senseless. Buffy noticed this.

"Steven, relax. That thing we did, that was just playing around." She playfully and gently punched him on his left shoulder. At first he flinched, but then he realized she wasn't mad. "No hard feelings, right?"

"No hard feelings. It was an honor to fight – I mean train – with the best. I mean the second best."

Buffy gave Connor a scolding look. Connor clarified. "Dawn's the best." All was forgiven. Everyone was happy. Buffy fought Connor to teach him that as a man he belonged to the weaker sex. Apparently Dawn had already taught him that.

Spike and his band were tuning up. "Did Anya find you last night?," Zooey asked Sterling.

"Yes, she did. We went to that club in La Mesa. That was a good time."

"Oh look, Sterl's swooning," Aidan joked.

"You don't know the half of it," Zooey added. "He spent an hour waiting, just because there was a chance she might show up."

"It wasn't an hour," Sterling claimed.

"I was there. It was."

"If it was, it was worth it. You know what I mean, right Spike?"

"Oh, uh, Anya, well, she's quite the bird. A lovely lady, If that's what you mean."

"So Spike, I was just telling Elise about Xander," Zooey said.

"You met Xander?"

"Yeah, met up with him and Willow. We hung out till closing time. Great guy. You think he'd be good for Elise?"

"I mean, if you don't mind," Elise told Spike. "It's just that your friends seem so, well, dateable." Elise was a tall, thin, graceful woman with long, straight black hair.

"Xander's not really a friend. More of a friend-of-a-friend," Spike clarified.

"But he's really cute," Zooey told Elise.

"You think Xander's cute?," a slightly annoyed Spike asked.

"Well yeah, in a beefy-yet-sensitive sort of way. And he's very funny."

"Xander's not funny. He's attempted funny," Spike responded. "He's a nice guy and all, but he can get on your nerves. Always throwing out one-liners at exactly the wrong time."

"One for. One against. Might as well meet him and break the tie," Elise announced. "He's single, right?"

"Yes, he's unattached," Spike answered. "Just like Anya was before she swept Sterling off his feet."

Spike's worlds were colliding. He didn't like it. His drummer was in love with a woman he had slept with. This made Spike feel a little guilty around Sterling. Now his keyboardist was being set up with the ex-fiance of his drummer's girlfriend. And to top it all off, Zooey was turning into some sort of Xander worshipper! Bloody hell. Bloody hell indeed.

"No need to leave anybody out. Aidan, you want to date one of my friends?"

"Spike, I'm married," his bassist replied. "You've met Kamillah."

Spike thought for a few seconds. "Sorry about that. Actually, I haven't met your Kamillah. I've never seen her at any of our shows."

"That's because she has to work. One of us needs a real job."

"I thought you had a day job. Don't you own that record shop in Oceanside?"

"It's a job, but it pays like a hobby. Low-margin business. I net maybe 20 a year. I love it, but it doesn't earn my keep."

Aidan was an unusual name for a black man. He was named after his grandfather, who was half-Irish. Thus, he's heard every "Black Irish" joke about 10,000 times. He was 31 years old, two years younger than his wife. She was an attorney who worked in San Diego. Having just made partner at her firm, she had to put in long hours of grunt work for the senior partners.

Buffy got home and found a nervous and worried Willow. "I'm so glad you're here," she told Buffy.

"What happened. Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure. I think. Maybe. I was at the science lab this afternoon. My teacher went into this locked room. I heard growls and stomping from inside. It sounded like he was keeping some beast in there. And the beast didn't sound like any ordinary animal."

"Willow, couldn't it have just been an experiment. It's biology. They study living things."

"It's microbiology, Buffy. They study living things that are small enough to fit in a test tube. Micro stuff. This definitely sounded macro."

"Better safe than sorry," Buffy reasoned. "Let's see what's there. If it's dangerous, we'll take care of it before it causes any trouble."

Dawn and Connor sat down on the couch and smiled. "I thought they'd never leave," Dawn told Connor.

Buffy drove Willow over to campus. Willow told her where the lab was. They parked nearby. Buffy looked at her watch. Five O'clock. Better take care of this fast, she thought.

The main door to the building was unlocked. The door to the lab where Gugan worked was locked. "I don't know the combination," Willow confessed.

Buffy grabbed the doorknob and twisted hard. This shattered the lock and opened the door. "Good thing I do," Buffy joked.

When they were inside, Willow pointed to the door behind which she heard the noises. It was a heavy metal door. Buffy pulled it open. They entered. It was dark. Buffy turned on the lights. Lying in the back corner of the room was a large demon with brown skin covered in swirling purple blotches. "Definitely not any animal I learned about in biology, Buffy whispered to Willow.

The light roused the demon. It stood up. Its right ankle was chained to the back wall. It leaped at Buffy and Willow. Willow ran to the door. The chain held the animal back. It flailed its arms at Buffy. She pulled out a large dagger and slashed his left forearm. It backed up and roared at her. Its head was large and egg-shaped, with the pointy end forward, so the head was longer than it was wide. When it opened its mouth to roar, Buffy saw three rows of teeth inside. Its bite looked even worse than its bark.

The demon shook its right leg and thrust it forward, trying to break free of the chain. Buffy approached, hoping to kill it before it broke free. She had her dagger in her right hand. The demon hit her with its left hand. With its right hand, the demon wrestled the knife from Buffy. Then the demon reached down and chopped off its right foot, freeing itself from captivity. It got down on its front paws, and charged out of the room on its three legs. Buffy was knocked down. Willow prudently ducked out of the way.

It ran out of the lab and into the hallway. Buffy ran after it. Not wanting to lose this demon, she didn't even take time to pick up her dagger. The demon leaped out a window, and onto the campus. So much for better safe than sorry.

Buffy leaped out the same window and kept close. Just as long as she killed it before it reached a large crowd of people, and everything would be fine. It starting chasing a student. The demon leaped for the kill. Buffy tackled the student to get him out of the way. "Run! Don't look back," she told him. Then she got up and faced her demon. The student did as he was told. Buffy kicked the demon in the head. It lunged at her. She grabbed it and pulled the demon up onto its hid leg. Once upright, the demon was at a distinct disadvantage because Buffy had two feet and it had only one.

Buffy threw the beast on its back and punched it several times in the chest before it struggled free and rolled over. It tried to run away from Buffy on its three legs. As it ran away from Buffy, it ran towards Willow.

"Don't move!," Buffy yelled. That was easy for her to say. She didn't have a rabid demon bearing down on her. On four legs, the demon could easily outrun Buffy. On three, she could catch up. She grabbed the demon by its tail. It dragged her a few feet, and then stopped five feet short of Willow. Buffy yanked the tail, pulling the demon back a few feet and causing it to roar in pain and anger. It turned around to bite Buffy. She moved back.

The only weapon Buffy had on her was a wooden stake. She took it in her right hand. The demon charged her. She stepped forward with her right foot and with a backhand thrust plunged the stake through the demon's right eye and well into its brain. This stopped it dead in its tracks. Buffy pulled out the stake. The deceased demon vanished. Buffy was covered in dirt. But she had time to head home and shower and change before meeting Spike.

"Oh no," Buffy said as she drove home.

"What is it now?," a worried Willow asked.

"I just realized that I left Dawn and Steven alone in the house."

"Buffy, no offense, but would you be this protective, this paranoid, if Steven had a different father? I'm sorry, but you seemed to be really supportive of the two of them until you found out who – and what – Stevens was. Let's face it, you were wigged."

"And you weren't?," Buffy asked defensively.

"Of course. I was thoroughly wigged. And yes, now that I know the truth, the idea of the two of them as a couple is kinda really freaky and also a tad icky. But they didn't know the backstory when they fell in love. You can't punish Dawn for your past."

"I admit it, I'm human. I was upset to discover that I slept with my sister's boyfriend's father. That's like the title for an episode of Jerry Springer."

Willow started laughing. "Oh and then they could bring out Cordelia and you two would start fighting. And then they bring out Spike and he tells Angel he slept with you and Angel and Spike start fighting. Oh and, uh, I'm not helping much, am I?"

Buffy got back on topic. "What really bothers me is the intensity of Dawn and Steven's relationship. It's like at any moment they're going to elope and strike out on their own. They have this whole I'd die without you' vibe which isn't healthy. There is such a thing as loving too much. Especially at that age."

Buffy walked into the house. They weren't downstairs. Which meant they were in Dawn's bedroom. Buffy went upstairs and burst in. Connor was on the bed, reading a book. Dawn was at her desk, doing homework. Connor heard the car pull into the driveway, giving him and Dawn ample time to look presentable. Buffy of course knew this was a sham.

Connor spoke up. "Buffy, Spike called while you were gone. Something came up with his band. He won't be able to make it tonight."

Buffy looked surprised and disappointed. "Gotcha," Dawn said. "We wouldn't actually lie to you to keep you from going on a date. That would be despicable. Don't you agree?"

Ouch. They had zinged Buffy good. She quietly fumed and went to take a shower. Time for her to focus on her own life for a change.

"Spike, is something wrong?," Buffy asked him during dinner.

"I was just worrying that some more of my old vampire chums would come after me now that I'm no longer one of the group."

"You shouldn't worry. Two have come, and you killed them both," Buffy said, referring to Alcibiades and Drusilla.

"There was a third. Remember that night behind the Bronze when you staked that vampire who was attacking me? That was Maxwell. I used to pick on him pretty bad in my New York days. He was really nice to me. I just did it because I could, I guess. He walloped me good. I knew I was going to die"

"But I took care of him," Buffy said finishing Spike's sentence.

"That's the problem. I don't wanna go hiding behind the Slayer every time I'm in trouble. It makes me feel like I'm not a man."

"When your old schoolmate was throttling me, I thought I was going to die. But you saved me. We're a team. Who saved who, that doesn't matter. If I need someone's help to kill a vampire, it doesn't make me any less of a Slayer."

The bill came. Spike looked at it. "83 quid! I still can't get over how expensive human food is." Buffy reached into her purse for her wallet. "I got it," Spike told her. He pulled out a wad of $20 bills and put five of them on the table. Buffy did know what to make of this.

"Haven't you heard? I moonlight as a gigolo." Spike waited a few seconds. No laughter. "That was a joke. You do know that, right? This is from what I earn with the band. It's not like I have many expenses to cover. The crypt's rent-free."

"Speaking of which, have you thought of moving into above-ground, human housing?"

"I've checked out a couple flats. Thinking of signing a lease for one of them soon. Clem's been begging me for my current place. And I really don't belong there anymore."

"You belong with the living," Buffy told Spike.

Anya opened the door. It was Xander. "So this is your new place. It's nice. Nicer than mine. Anyway, I came by because today you actually said something nice about me. I thought maybe this meant we've moved beyond the acrimony."

"It was nothing," Anya replied. "Just the truth. We did have some good times together."

"We did. Lots of good times. That reminds me – your new boyfriend"

"Sterling," Anya said.

"Yes, Sterling. Does he make you happy?"

"Yes. He makes me very happy."

"Good. I'm glad. You don't deserve to be lonely. By the way, since you became a Vengeance Demon again, have you used your powers? Have you vengeanced?"

"You are the only man I've tried to hurt. You're also the only man I can't hurt. Funny how that works out."

"Since I found out you got your powers back, I was scared that you would abandon being a person because I had abandoned you. For me, that may have been the worst part. The fear I had cost you your humanity. Fortunately, you didn't condemn the whole species on account of my cowardice."

"Xander, do you ever think back to that day, and wish you had acted differently?"

"Every morning. When I wake up. Alone." After saying that Xander left.

On Friday night Spike told Connor to meet him at the Magic Shop on Saturday at 8 at night. They were alone, in the training room. Connor grabbed hold of a handle which was attached to a flat piece of wood 4 inches wide and two feet long. "How does this weapon work?," Connor asked Spike.

Spike laughed. "That's not a weapon. That's a cricket bat."

"I guess this could be used to kill insects," Connor replied.

"No Steven, not crickets. Cricket. It's a game. Giles must have left that here before he left. You use it to hit a ball. Let me show you." Spike took the bat, found a tennis ball, dropped it, and hit it on the short hop. It bounced off the wall on the opposite side of the room, flew back to Spike, and he hit it again.

"Can I try?," a curious Connor asked.

"Sure. I'll throw the ball, and you try to hit it. That's basically how the game goes."

Spike went to the other side of the room. "It's been a long time since I've done this, a really long time," Spike joked. He took a step forward and threw the ball with an overhead windmill motion. The ball hit the ground about six feet it front of Connor. Spike had put spin on the ball, and after it bounced it curved a few inches away from Connor. He swung and whiffed mightily.

Spike had been too modest. He threw as if he had just come off the pitch. And he took a bit too much pleasure in striking out someone who had never stood in front of a wicket. Spike realized this when he saw Connor's frustration. "Trust me, cricket's not you game. Hours and hours of standing around."

"That sounds boring. I thought games were supposed to be fun."

"Everyone has their own idea of what fun is," Spike explained. Then he got to the point. "Steven, I called your father. He's coming here to see you."

Connor looked terrified. "You brought Angelus after me! Why would you do that?"

"I didn't. I was just testing you. I don't even know his phone number. But Buffy does. I'm surprised she hasn't called him yet. It's only a matter of time. You can't spend your whole life hiding from your father."

"It's worked so far."

"You really think he's evil?"

"It's in his nature."

"Steven, you trust me, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You've come to me for advice. Right?"

"Sure."

"And have I ever steered you wrong? Have I ever encouraged you to do something you later regretted?"

"No. Of course not."

"Now trust me when I tell you this. Angel is not bad. Angel did not kill Holtz. I know this. I am sure of this. I've already told you why I know this. And when I told you my reasons, you didn't disagree. So I think deep down you know I'm right."

Connor thought a few seconds. "How can you be sure? You weren't even there."

"Neither were you. And who knows Angel better, me or you?"

Buffy got home. Willow was in the dining room working at her laptop. "How was the big date?," Willow asked.

"It was kinda boring. And a little wonderful. It was wonderful because it was boring. The whole role-playing thing was nice. Pretending we were just a regular couple. And we almost convinced ourselves it was true."

"And in our lives, ordinary is a rarity, so it can actually be kind of exciting," Willow explained.

"Yes. Our lives our backwards. The ordinary is extraordinary. What are you up to?"

"I'm trying to find out more about our mad scientist. It's kind of disappointing. Patrick's a really nice guy."

"People aren't always what they seem," Buffy responded.

Willow was trying to hack into Gugan's personal hard drive. She got through the firewalls and the passwords. But just as she was accessing his directory, her screen went dark. She couldn't fix it. Then, on the screen, in large letters, appeared the words "HI WILLOW."

Then a sentence scrolled across the bottom of her screen. It read ""My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance."

It continued to scroll for about five minutes. During that time Willow was unable to reboot her machine. Her computer was not under her control. Then the message disappeared, and her hard drive restarted. It got to the DOS level, but could not find an operating system. All of Willow's files and applications had been erased.

Spike told Connor what was on his mind. "You need to go back to Los Angeles. You belong with your father."

"If you're right, if Angel's innocent, well, he's not going to be happy to see me after what I did to him. If he's innocent, then what I did was horrible. If someone did that to you, punished you like that for something you did not do, how would you feel? What would you do?"

"Angel knows a little something about seeking forgiveness. Believe me. His whole life is one big quest for forgiveness. He knows it was a misunderstanding. He won't be mad. He'll be happy to have you back. Trust me."

"Why do you want me to leave? Why do you want me to go away?"

"Because this isn't your home. Because you don't belong here."

"Yes I do! I belong with Dawn!"

"That's true. You and Dawn do belong together. But you have the rest of your lives to be together. Your whole adult lives. You can spend some time with your father while you're still a kid. It won't kill you. It's not like you'd be leaving Dawn forever. And she'd only be 90 miles away, so you could still see her."

Connor thought seriously about this proposal. "I don't know. This is all so sudden."

"Sudden is you style, Steven. You fell for Dawn, suddenly. You found out about my past, suddenly. You told everyone about your past, suddenly. You left this dimension, suddenly. You came back into this dimension, suddenly. You're the kind of guy who takes his time."

"I just don't want to leave Dawn."

"Yes, I know. You're 16. You're in love. It would feel like the end of the world. You want to spend every moment of every day with her. But you can't have that right now, even if you stayed in Sunnydale. You think Buffy would allow that?"

"Buffy is scared I will take Dawn away from her. And I will."

"Perhaps. But not in the next couple months you won't. Actually, over the next few months, I'd be more worried about Buffy attacking you than I would about Angel attacking you."

Connor laughed a little. "You may have a point there, Spike."

"Lets look at the record. Buffy's attacked you twice. Angel's attacked you how many times?"

Connor thought about this. Then a look of surprise came over his face. "He hasn't."

Spike believed he had made his point. He drove Connor back to Xander's.

Willow was furious. What an evil bastard. She could not believe what was happening. She grabbed the phone and called Gugan. "Hello Willow," he said.

"What the hell did you do to my computer?"

"It's not nice to hack into other people's computers. I wanted to teach you that."

"You erased my hard drive!"

"No I didn't." Gugan typed a few keys on his computer. Willow's OS started up. Everything was there. "I only made it look like all your files had disappeared. Just a little magic trick. A harmless magic trick."

"Harmless? That demon you kept at the lab. Was that harmless?"

"No, it was very harmful. That's why I kept it locked up."

"You shouldn't have kept it at all. What were you doing with that thing?"

"Willow. Did you read my message? You couldn't help but read it, right?"

"What sick game are you playing with me?"

"Just in case you didn't write it down, I emailed it to you. Find out what it means. You're good at research, at looking things up, aren't you?" Then he hung up. Just what this town needed, she thought. Another geek trying to make a name for himself.

Spike went into Xander's apartment. "Where's Steven?," Xander asked.

"He's outside looking for vampires."

"There are vampires around my building!"

"No. But I told him there were to keep him outside for a few minutes. I need to have a talk with you."

"Spike, is this about what Anya said?"

"Oh, grow up Harris. This is important. This is about Steven. I think Steven should go to Los Angeles. I think he should be with his father."

Xander couldn't believe this. "Of course. Because Steven and Angel were so happy together."

"Maybe you'll get lucky and this time Steven will actually kill Angel. You'd love that, right Xander?"

"Since when did you become such a fan of Angel?"

"I don't care about Angel. I care about Steven. And I know you care about Steven. You know how powerful he is, how violent he can be. If he thinks he came from evil, if he's thinks that's what he is deep down inside, there's no telling what he'd be capable of. As long as he hates his father, there's always the chance he could be a ticking time bomb. If he resolves his daddy issues, brings some peace to that front, then we don't have to worry. He'll be great. He'll do great things. He'll always be the great guy you like and care about."

Then Spike played his ace-in-the-hole. "Also, if he's in Los Angeles, he won't be near Dawn. Think about it." Spike left.

When he walked outside, Connor met him. "I didn't find any vampires."

"Good, just a false alarm then. Have good night. Remember what we talked about."

Xander did the right thing, though he may have done it for the wrong reason. Spike did offer an easy solution to Xander's and Buffy's worries about Dawn. But Xander also knew Angel wasn't bad – at least for the moment. And he did understand that it could be good for Connor rid himself of patricidal impulses. But these two reasons alone probably wouldn't have totally convinced him to endorse the move.

After thinking for about half-an-hour, Xander talked to Connor.

"Steven, it's fine to hate your father. I do. It's okay to be ashamed of your family. I am. But first, you have to give them a chance. You haven't had a chance to give Angel a chance. I'll be honest. Your father and I never got along real well. But you're a great kid. And I know any father would be proud to have you as his son. So go enjoy the big city. Just remember, you ride in buses, not on top of them."

Connor looked chagrined. "I know that, Xander. You pay your fare, you sit down."

"One time I did see you jump off the roof of a moving bus right in front of the apartment."

"That was because I didn't have exact change."

"Just making sure. Because there's always a chance the bus will go through an underpass and it'll knock your head off. You take care, Steven."

Spike came by Xander's to pick Connor up in the morning. There was one last piece of unfinished business for them to attend to. So Spike drove to the Summers residence.

Spike talked to Buffy on one side of the porch. "This is so sudden," Buffy told him.

"I know. I sprung the idea last night. Took some convincing, but Steven realized it was for the best."

"So he left Xander's. What does Xander think?"

"He's cautiously supportive. Emphasis on cautious."

"How'd you do it?"

"We all know Angel didn't kill that Holtz guy. I convinced Steven of that. We all know Angel's a good guy. So I convince Steven of that. Wasn't too hard. All I had to do was make him to recognize the obvious."

Buffy was shaking her head. "When did you become such a saint?," she jokingly asked. "And when did you become such a fan of Angel's?"

"The fact that this could make Angel happy is pure coincidence. I just think it's best for Steven not to go through life always wanting to kill his dad."

Dawn took the news much harder than Buffy. "I don't understand. Everything was perfect. And then I wake up, and you're leaving me."

Connor put his hands to Dawn's face and tried to comfort her. "It's only for a little while. You and me, it's eternal. I can never leave you. And I'll be back at your side before long."

He saw this wasn't helping. "Dawn, I love you more than anything. Before you, there was no meaning to my life. You're everything to me. It's just, he's my father. He's my only family. I need to be with him, just like you need to be with Buffy."

"I need to be with you. Don't you need to be with me?," Dawn asked.

Connor hugged her. "Yes. Every second of the day. Without Xander or Buffy tagging along. Just us. We'll have that soon enough. Then everything will be perfect."

Connor saw that Dawn was crying. "Please, no. I don't mean to hurt you. Ever. Try to understand – the last time I saw my father I was locking him in a watery grave. I can't leave things like that."

They kissed several times and hugged again. Dawn held Connor tightly. He could here her sobbing. "Be strong Dawn. You're the strongest person I know. I'll love you every moment I'm away, and I'll be back in your arms in no time." After another thirty seconds of silent embracing, Dawn let go.

Connor, Spike and Buffy walked out to the car. Dawn stood on the porch, still crying. As Spike was about to open the driver's side door, Buffy grabbed him and kissed him for about ten seconds. "Now you place nice with Angel, okay?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Spiiike?," Buffy answered. They both knew exactly why.

"I'll be on my best behavior. I promise. I'll tell you all about it tonight."

Spike got in the car and drove north with Connor.

"There's something about the women in that family," Connor told Spike.

"Yes there is."

"Did you ever meet their mother?"

"You mean Joyce? Yeah, I knew her."

"What was she like?"

"When we met, she hit me in the head with an ax. We did become friends later on. She was real nice. Very classy, very smart. A real great dame."

"With an ax," Connor marvelled. "Guess you don't want to get on the wrong side of any woman in that family."

"Tell me about it," Spike answered in agreement. "And you sure don't want one of them coming at you with a stake in their hand."

"Tell me about it," Connor joked. After all, Buffy had tried to stake him. That was something Connor, Spike and Angel all had in common.


End file.
